


Winterhawk Kisses: Doing Donuts

by Nny



Series: Winterhawk Kisses [3]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Demons, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Steampunk, Alternate Universe - Werewolf, Crossover, Halloween, Halloween Costumes, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pumpkins, Wingfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-15
Updated: 2018-06-08
Packaged: 2018-12-30 04:13:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 150
Words: 57,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12100479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nny/pseuds/Nny
Summary: Daily ficlets from the Winterhawk Kisses tumblr. This will be updated weekly.Part 3 of the collected ficlets.





	1. Chapter 1

Barney was long gone by the time the circus left Coney Island, him and Trickshot and a whole bundle of the circus’s payroll. Clint assumed that it was a final fuck you that had Barney calling CPS on him, ‘cos he was 16 years old and he’d been able to look after himself since he was just gone 7; they showed up when Clint was still in hospital, still not sure he’d ever be able to use his bow. 

Clint tried arguing, tried lying, tried - a pretty pathetic attempt - to run away, but he ended up being released from hospital into the custody of a woman called Annalise who drove him to the first one. 

He thought of them like that. The first one, the second one, ‘cos what kinda good’d there be in learning any names? He never stuck around long enough for them to matter. Willful, disobedient, a little too gay; the reasons were pretty unimportant, when they all led to the same damn thing. A string of foster homes where he didn’t want to be, where they didn’t want him to be, where he didn’t end up being for much longer than a week. Mostly he remembered moments, images: the lock on seven’s fridge, with the string on a key round her neck; the smile that kept on creeping up on three when they told him they were sorry, but they were focusing on the kid they were gonna adopt; ten’s dog. 

He’d liked ten’s dog. 

He honestly hadn’t expected it to be twelve that stuck. Not when he arrived slumped in the back seat of Annalise’s car that smelled of cheetos and teen angst, still simmering, quietly furious, ready to explode. 

The house was small and narrow, gray clapperboard and a stack of little windows climbin’ their way up the front door. Woman on the porch looked a bunch like all the other women on porches had looked: faded dress, folded arms, narrowed eyes. Clint hauled himself outta the back seat, pulling his duffel out after him and wrapping it up in his arms, and gave her the suspicious stare right back. 

“This is Clint,” Annalise said, all smiles that were edged around with strain, “and Clint, this is Ms Barnes.” 

Ms Barnes nodded her head a little, acknowledgement, and Clint didn’t move, staring her in the face before all the venom that’d been winding its slick route around the inside of him spat out of his mouth. 

“Something you should know,” Clint said, and Annalise turned, saw his expression, held out her hand. 

“ _Clint_  -”

“I’m a carny and a thief,” he told her, using the words like weapons, “I don’t believe in any sorta god and I wanna fuck boys. Got a problem with any of that, you got a problem with me -” a prayed over, shouted down problem; a locked in, boxed ears problem; a 9-1-1, he’s got a knife fuckin’ problem - “and I’ll just see myself out right now.” 

“Call me Nancy,” she said, and there was something that looked like approval in her eyes. “Fetch yourself some juice from the kitchen, Clint, and me and Annalise will have a talk.” 

There was a jumble of shoes just inside the door, but Clint didn’t bother kicking off his sneakers - he wouldn’t be staying. The kitchen was straight through to the back of the house, all the doors between propped open, and the last sunlight was laying in stripes across the floor. The refrigerator didn’t have a lock, at least. 

There was juice, a couple flavors, in the refrigerator door, and a pitcher of home-made lemonade on the shelf. It had a little bit of lace sitting on top, weighed down around the edges with blue and green beads, like Nancy was a whole bunch older than she looked. 

(Fuck names. Twelve. If she was even that.)

He found a glass on the drainer and poured himself a drink, fishing out a couple mint leaves that floated on top. He pushed his way out through the screen door, setting his duffel down on the step next to him, and rested his head against the white-painted railing. 

He was tired, mostly. Mostly, he was tired, and counting down the days until 18. What he was gonna do then he had no clue, hadn’t thought that far ahead, but he had his bow at least. Maybe he’d find another circus; maybe he’d try to find out where Carson’s had been. The number of beds between here and there meant less than nothing, and the stinging in his eyes was just from the inconvenient fucking sunset. That was all. 

When they called him into the living room he rinsed his glass out on the way through and put it back on the drainer, ‘cos he was used to not leaving a sign behind that he’d ever been there. Annalise was perched on an overstuffed couch and Nancy - Ms Barnes - fuckin’  _twelve_  - was in an ugly-ass armchair. Clint stood in the doorway, arms folded across his chest. 

“Ms Barnes would like to offer you a place to stay,” Annalise told him, and Clint’s head snapped around to look at twelve, twelve now, at her scraped back white hair and her generous mouth and the odd little smile at the corner of it. “Would that be okay with you, Clint?” 

“I - er.” Uncomfortable, a little embarrassed, a little - unexpectedly - sorry, Clint rubbed at the back of his neck. “Yeah,” he said. “I guess.” 

 

*

 

“So what was it?” he asked, as he followed her up the narrow stairway, his bag still clutched tight to his chest. “The looks? The charm? The fact I’m a fag?” 

She turned around in the hallway and glared. 

“I don’t call myself ‘Ms’ ‘cos I’ve been divorced, Clint,” she said, pissed, and it took him a second for that to sink in. 

“Wait, and CPS still let you -”

“Why, you gonna tell them?” She rolled her eyes at his gaping, but he could tell she was a little amused. “This one’s you.” 

The window looked out over the little scrap of land that could generously be called a garden, filled as it was mostly with trash cans and weeds. There wasn’t much - a narrow bed, a dresser with more of that lace stuff on top, a framed photo of a guy in a uniform. Clint picked it up to take a closer look at it, noting the resemblance, noticing the mischievous curl to his mouth, noticing the line of his jaw. 

“Wow,” he said, involuntary, and then cleared his throat when she laughed at him, his cheeks flushing blotchy red. 

“Little out of your age range,” she said. “That’s my older brother Jimmy, MIA in the war.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, a little surprised to find that he meant it. 

“So were we,” she said, “but it was a long time ago. I can take it if you -” 

“Nah,” Clint said, “leave it. Not like I’ve got any to replace it with.” 

“Plus he was hot,” she said, one eyebrow raised, and Clint found himself startled into a laugh. 

“Plus he was hot,” he agreed.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hogwarts AU

Clint was drowsing by the fire after a long day of lost timetables and school tours and unsettled paintings, of tiny first years with eyes bigger than their entire faces and a perfection of uniform the kids’d never manage again. He’d promised himself a test flight on the new Nimbus Glide as a reward for the craziness, just him and the quidditch pitch and the endless darkness, but it’d always been one of those friendly lies anyway. First of September, as it slipped gently through the night into the second, there was nowhere else he’d ever be. 

The Hufflepuff common room was low-ceilinged and organic feeling, lacking in anything much like a straight line. Everything was heaping cushions, haphazardly stacked books, plants tucked in corners and blankets tossed over chairs. It was a workplace, that was its unique character, and over the long summers it was Clint’s - twigs littering the floor from the brooms he repaired, fletching feathers sorted by size on the coffee table by the fire, a worn book of counter-curses spread open on his chest as he dozed. 

He wouldn’t be in here until next summer, now, not unless any of the students earned their ire, but the night of the first was a tradition for him: a fire chat with Madam Esmerelda, a mug of spiced chocolate, a musing over dreams and goals. And always, always a night spent with one ear kept open in case of homesickness and bad dreams. 

Clint’s first night at Hogwarts hadn’t been like this. They’d brought him - the ministry - ‘cos they hadn’t been sure how else to deal with an angry fifteen year old who showed all the signs of the Imperius curse, who they couldn’t in all decency send to prison, who couldn’t seem to stop shaking. They’d left him in Dumbledore’s office with a half-dead bird and a seriously judgmental cat while they hissed frantic whispers in the stairwell. Clint’d curled up in the worn leather chair and hugged his knees to his chest, resting his head on them and trying not to think about Barney all wrapped up and struggling against vines, about the watchman’s wide-open, unseeing eyes, about Trick and his one way ticket to Azkaban. 

After a while, when the susurrus of whispered back and forth had just become another background noise like the hissing of the fire, something nudged against his foot. The cat had leaped up onto his chair and dropped a floppy, moth-eaten wizard’s hat by his hip. Clint offered it his fingers, curled over, to sniff, but the cat had just given them a look of scorn and glided off to hunt dust balls in the corner. 

With nothing else to do, Clint - in the long tradition of anyone left alone too long in a room with a hat - had placed it onto his head. 

“There, you see?” Dumbledore had said, conveniently close enough to hear the hat call out  _Hufflepuff!_  in decisive tones. “I believe that settles it, gentlemen?” 

The men from the Ministry hummed and hawed, but in the end they admitted that it was certainly a good sign. 

“Of course, if it had been  _Slytherin_ ,” one said. 

“Of course,” Dumbledore answered. 

“Bullshit prejudice,” Clint muttered, just loud enough to be heard; he’d been pretty sure the cat had given him an approving look from its corner. 

So his first night hadn’t been like this. Shown in a bubble of silence to the Hufflepuff fifth year dorm, left to try to sleep surrounded by the sound of strangers’ snores, staring up at the canopy of his bed in the darkness and trying not to hyperventilate. He’d rolled off the rumpled sheets eventually, walked along the flagstone corridor to the common room where the high windows were just showing the first gray of dawn. He’d built up the fire with the ease of long practice and settled in front of it, watching the flickering flames, and it wasn’t until the startled meep of a house elf in the corner that he’d turned, seen that he wasn’t alone. 

He’d figured the boy for a fifth year, like him. He was asleep in a wide moss-green armchair, his mouth open and his dark hair over his face, a Muggle book about space lying near his lax hand. He was beautiful the way that things are always beautiful when you need them that badly; to see something relaxed and serene in a day of painful chaos was enough to have Clint leaning back against the mustard-yellow sofa by the fire and falling asleep, a little more hopeful. 

He’d woken up alone.

Now, the fire was barely more than glowing embers. He’d drifted long enough that a house elf had, unregarded, switched out his drained mug for one that was steaming and fresh.  Clint took a careful sip, managed not to burn his mouth on it, which for him was practically a miracle. It was perfect, better than the last one, made thick with just the right spices and a heaping dollop of cream.

“Thanks,” he said, low, into the darkness, and something in the shadows startled, shifted. Clint sat up a little straighter, squinted in a way that was no help at all, but a slight movement forward resolved the shades of gray and grayer into a tall wizard, cloaked but not hooded, his long hair tucked behind his ear. His expression was hard to read in the darkness, the kind of blank that was made up of entirely too much. He was the kind of presence that people had bad dreams about, dark and leather-clad and frowning right down to his soul, moving with the silence of unmistakably deadly things. 

“Oh,” said Clint, “hey,” and did his best to ignore the welter of owls that fluttered to life in his stomach at the sight of him, that had always been so sensitive to his presence, right from that very first night. “Hey, James.” 


	3. Chapter 3

“Not sick,” Clint said, his head resting in the crook of his elbow, forearm shading his eyes. 

“Yeah, stand up and tell me that,” Bucky answered off-hand, attempting to fit a cucumber into the salad crisper with all the goddamn beer. He shoulda known better, of course, ‘cos the next thing he heard was a loud crash. He span around to see Clint lying on the floor, his arm still propped up on the coffee table, which’d been shoved forward with his weight. 

“Ow,” he said, soft and pathetic, and he was a shade of pale that was honestly starting to be a little worrying. 

“Okay, that’s it,” he said, “you’re going back to bed, don’t even try to argue that with me.” 

Clint just kinda grunted in response, squinting against the dull gray light, and he didn’t protest when Bucky pulled him upright and draped his arm around Bucky’s shoulders. Close up, Clint was shaking a little, a fine tremor that he must be working hard to keep so unnoticeable. He was sweating through his shirt, and radiating heat, but his teeth were starting to chatter. 

“Dammit, Clint,” Bucky said. He half-supported, half-carried him over to the staircase, then made an executive decision and bent down so he could haul Clint over his shoulder. And that worked fine most of the way up the stairs, right up until Clint started struggling. Weakly, sure, but it was enough to almost make Bucky lose his balance, especially when Clint’s knee got him right in the ribs. 

“All right, asshole,” he said, dumping him onto the messed up sheets, “I get that you’re a strong independent woman who don’t need no - Clint?” 

Clint was moving weakly, trying to push himself backwards and away from Bucky, sweat beading on his forehead. “I don’t wanna,” he said, and he sounded confused, not contrary. “You don’t have to -”

“Clint,” Bucky said, and he crouched next to the bed, reaching across so he could put his palm against Clint’s forehead. “Clint, baby, you’re burning up. You got a thermometer around here?” 

“I - er.” Clint licked his lips, frowned. “I think -” he gestured vaguely towards the bathroom. Bucky diverted to open the windows, letting in the sound of traffic and a fresh spray of rain, and pulled his phone out of his pocket. 

“Er, Sergeant Barnes?” The voice on the other end was a little hesitant, which made sense - it wasn’t like him and Bruce Banner had ever exactly been friends. 

“Hey,” he said, rummaging through the medical cabinet above the sink that was stacked almost to bursting with band-aids. “Sorry to bother you, doc, but Clint’s got a fever and I figure things’ve changed a bunch since I was helping Steve out in the ‘30s. What should I -?” 

“Lots of water, keep him cool but not cold, cool cloth on the forehead - he’s not hallucinating?” 

“Clint’s sense of humor, who can tell?” Bucky said. “Nah, I think we’re good on that - he’s a little confused, maybe.” 

“I can come over if -”

“We’re good,” Bucky said, “I know you’re on vacation. I’ll take him to the doctors if I think we’ve got issues.” He cleared his throat a little, awkward. “Thanks, Bruce.” 

“My pleasure, Bucky,” Bruce said, and Bucky hadn’t known he knew the doc well enough to hear the smile in his voice. 

Bucky ran a little water over a washcloth, leaving the faucet running as he tried the basket of random crap Clint kept by the side of the shower. He always figured it for pocket contents, ‘cos there was a hell of a lot of loose change, but he finally unearthed the thermometer from under a magazine about home repairs. It was pretty cute, how hard Clint worked at the landlording thing. 

Armed with the thermometer, damp cloth, a plastic beaker of water, Bucky returned to the bedroom to find Clint half under the blankets, one arm, most of his legs and rumpled blond hair still visible. 

“Oh, sweetheart,” Bucky said, soft and fond and a tone reserved entirely for Clint and Lucky. “Let’s get you settled.”

Clint protested vigorously at having his shirt pulled off over his head, scowling with his arms crossed over his chest and - with his hair standing up on end - looking like the world’s largest five year old. He submitted to the wipe-down, though, Bucky careful and thorough and gentle, even left-handed, and he even muttered a graceless thank you when Bucky’d carefully maneuvered a fresh shirt over his head. 

The pillows were easily switched out for the ones from his side of the bed, plusher and fresher ‘cos Clint was the secret kinda sweetheart and Bucky was selfish enough to let him get away with it, in no small part because Clint’s preferred position was to sleep with his head mostly on Bucky’s chest. Bucky assumed that was a little why Clint was still scowling when Bucky took away the half-drained beaker and made him lay back. He brushed the hair away from Clint’s forehead and set to smoothing away the frown with his thumb. 

“How’re you so good at this?” Clint asked, every blink taking a little longer, “is this a Steve thing?” 

“Some of it,” Bucky said, “some of it was my little sister, always catching somethin’ nasty from the kids at school. Anyone do this for you?” 

“Didn’t get sick when I was a kid,” Clint said, half-asleep already. “They didn’t have time for it.” 

“I always got time for you, Clint,” Bucky said, soft, as Clint’s breathing slowed with the sweep of Bucky’s thumb. “You always gotta make time for the people you love.” 


	4. Chapter 4

The scars on Bucky’s back curve around like two mirrored fish hooks, clumsily puckered and ugly. The files they’d recovered indicated that Hydra had considered replacing ‘em - the wreck of wings that’d bent and broken under the explosion that’d tossed him out of the train, that’d been torn beyond salvaging when he fell, when he landed. Apparently it wasn’t feasible, with the weight of the arm, with the tech they had available, but that had always been insignificant. Can’t miss what you can’t remember. 

He remembers, now. 

Steve’s wings’d been underdeveloped, although apparently the serum fixed that. Bucky’d always been used to pulling for two, to feeling the strain on his wings but - but he ain’t heavy, Bucky thought, Bucky remembered, he’s my  _brother._

Clint can’t lift him, not feasible, weight of the arm. But he scouts for Bucky, finds the routes or builds ‘em to the places that you can’t help but feel like flying, the wind racing past you like it knows you’re part of the scenery, exactly where you should be. Clint finds them perches and roosts, finds them mission-appropriate nests, and when the night are long and cold and lonely, he builds them, too. Nests. Pillows and blankets and strategic props, and there’s something in this - mating displays, and homes, and  _Clint -_ that gives him an adrenaline rush like he’s flying, like he can almost forget what it feels like to fall. 


	5. Chapter 5

Clint rolled his head back against the arm of the couch and whined. It made Lucky’s ear perk up lazily, but no other reaction than that - he was pretty sure they were both feeling it today, the lassitude of a summer day and too much sleep and no real motivation to get the day started. 

“Today’s a pajamas day, Nat, it’s already decided.” 

“Quit being lazy,” she said, sounding a little annoyed.  _Someone_  wasn’t feeling the summer spirit, gosh darn Russians. 

“Hey,” he said, “quit being mean. I get to do whatever the hell I want today, that’s the rules.” 

“Why?” she said, and that hurt a little more than he’d thought it would. And then there was quiet Russian swearing. She didn’t apologise - Tasha rarely apologised - but she sounded a little sorry, at least. 

“I had forgotten.” 

“Yeah, I figured,” Clint said. “It’s fine - you’ve been busy.” No busier than usual, maybe, but normal was pretty freakin’ busy when you were an Avenger. And never mind that Tony had already started planning some kinda epic blow-out for Steve’s birthday; it wasn’t like the date of Steve’s birthday was an easy one to forget.

“I’ll stop disturbing you,” she said, a little stiff, and Clint sighed. The little sting of disappointment from a forgotten birthday was no excuse to be an asshole. 

“Nah, I’ll come over,” Clint said, voice going a little strained as he hauled himself to his feet. “Fair warning, though: I ain’t getting dressed. And Lucky’s coming.” 

“That will be acceptable,” she said, sounding a little amused. 

Clint shoved his phone into the pocket of his loose sweats. There was a coffee stain on the hem of his shirt - the CUNNING STUNT one with the sleeves ripped off - but it wasn’t so far from what he’d wear any day of the week. He whistled between his teeth for Lucky, shoving bare feet into battered sneakers, and shoved a hand through his bed-messy hair and called it good. 

The elevator was out again - Clint made a mental note to call the goddamned maintenance company and ream out that asshole Lloyd about it, again. On the way down the stairs he kicked gently at an AC unit until it started blowing out cool air again. Monday. That was Monday’s issue. Halfway down the third flight Lucky started whining a little, ‘cos his knees hadn’t been so great since his accident, so Clint hauled him up into his arms and cursed and sweated his way down to the first floor. 

His phone buzzed in his pocket. 

_Any idea why N’s making angry noises at me about forgetting something? x_

Clint put Lucky down and checked his mail, which was empty. It was fine. They were new. New enough it hadn’t been a year yet, anyhow, and he wasn’t even sure he’d told Bucky his birthday. He wasn’t  _pissed_ , he just - didn’t quite have the mental fortitude to get back to Bucky right now. 

He ran into Simone on the way out of the building. 

“Hey, Clint,” she said, awkward and embarrassed. “Look, I hate to ask, but I think Tejan flushed something he shouldn’t’ve and now -”

“I’ll come over tonight,” Clint said, “it’s fine, don’t worry about it.” Coffee. He needed coffee. If he got some coffee everything’d be better. 

Clint stared blankly at the street corner for a minute or two, when he got there. Instead of Java Joe’s cheerful sign -  _POSSIBLY THE WORST DAMN COFFEE IN NOOYAWK -_  there were orange plastic barriers and a pile of rubble. The jackhammer was a particularly nice touch from the universe. 

It was seriously tempting to just text Nat back, call the day a wash and go back to bed with some ice-cream. Probably would have, too, except his phone buzzed again. 

_you okay?_

_yeah,_  Clint sent back.  _I’m coming over_. 

The Winter Soldier used emoticons. Pretty much never failed to raise a smile, although not one as wide as on the little yellow face. 

The train ride over was best not talked about; too many, too loud, too close. Someday Clint was gonna get Lucky one of those service dog jackets, ‘cos it might earn him a little space; it was that or punch someone. 

 “I’m sorry,” the girl on the desk said, when he finally arrived, hauled his dusty sweating grumpy ass through the pristine glass doors. “If you don’t have ID -”

“Lady,” Clint said, aiming for patient and shooting a little wide, “I’m a goddamn Avenger. Call Tony Stark, he’ll let me in.” 

“I’ll - I’ll call up,” she said, “if you could just take a seat?” 

Clint slumped into one of the horribly uncomfortable chairs, glaring at the guy in a suit who deliberately moved a couple seats further away. Lucky sat on his feet and Clint buried his hands in his fur, leaning down to rest his forehead on the top of Lucky’s head. 

“Clint?” 

The voice was a little hesitant, as was the grin when he looked up. Clint echoed it, if a little late, and it was kinda stupid that seeing his guy was putting a lump in his throat, right? 

“You okay?” Bucky asked, and Clint shrugged, pushing up to his feet. 

“Shitty day,” he said, grabbing Lucky’s leash and attempting to straighten his shirt a little, ‘cos Bucky was dressed kinda fancy. “It’s really fucking good to see you, though.” 

“You too,” Bucky said, and grabbed his free hand, leading him into the elevator. They rode up silently a few floors and then Bucky hit the emergency stop. 

“Wha-?” was all Clint managed to get out before Bucky was leaning in to kiss him, slow and patient and deep, his hands sliding into Clint’s hair, his thumbs sweeping back and forth just over his ears. 

“Happy birthday, baby,” Bucky said, hushed, and Clint slowly smiled against his mouth. 

“Aaw,” he said, “you asshole.” 

“Thor was really enthusiastic about the whole surprise party thing,” Bucky said, pulling away just a little, cupping Clint’s face in his hands. “They’re all up there with hats and shit.” 

“Next year, how about you warn me first?” Clint said, pushing forward a little so he could lean against Bucky’s chest, could duck down awkwardly to rest his head on the guy’s shoulder. “My ego’s not so good with people forgetting me.” 

“I don’t get how the hell you’d think we could,” Bucky said, and he wrapped his arms tightest around Clint, pressed kisses against his temple, let him stay there as long as he needed before they headed up. 


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More of the steampunk circus AU

Tony was doing something intricate with wires and delicate glass when Clint hauled aside the balanced corrugated metal that served just as well as a door. His head snapped up, magnifying goggles turning his eyes into an owl’s, and he turned to flick a glance at the shadowed back of his workshop before turning back to Clint, the intensity of his glare magnified right along with his eyes. 

“How many times do I have to tell you to knock, bird brain?” he snapped, sounding not so much angry as like someone who has had a quick fear just as quickly relieved, and has to let the electrical energy of the emotion earth itself somewhere. 

“We’ve got trouble,” Clint said, simply. “Someone’s broken the Laws, and whoever it is needs to get the hell out of here. Fast.” 

Tony laid the translucent glass carefully on the metal of his table with a gentle click, and the deliberateness of the movement said everything he didn’t. Clint swore, low and fast and vicious and with a certain venomous creativity. 

“What did you do?” he said. “‘cos we’ve got the goddamn Winter Soldier, the Red King’s  _Justice_ , strolling around in the crowds outside, and I have no plans to die today.” 

Tony pushed his goggles onto the top of his head, wiping his forehead with one oil-streaked forearm that didn’t so much clean anything away as redistribute it. He looked scared, sure, but determined with it. Angry. The expression of a man who’d die fighting for something, and Clint had seen that expression enough when he’d fought for the Mad King Loki, back before he’d earned the epithet. 

“Goddamn it,” he breathed. “She’d better be worth it.” 

Tony’s jaw firmed a little more and he folded his arms across his chest. 

“You might as well come out,” he called, without breaking eye contact with Clint. Something moved in the shadows behind him, and Clint watched as a man stepped forward into the light. It took a moment to place him - he’d shaved all the matted hair off his face, cut back his hair - but the steel-jawed defiant look was exactly as it’d been when they’d seen him dragged through the streets of a town a week distant, heavy iron manacles on ankles and wrists. 

“They said he was a killer,” Clint said, flat and still deciding on angry, “They said - Tony, there are  _kids_  here -”

“They lied,” the man insisted. “They just wanted to make sure nobody’d help me if I escaped again.” 

“ _Again_?” Clint looked him up and down, trying to look dismissive while he carefully cataloged his broad shoulders, defined muscles, balanced stance. “How many times has a man gotta be arrested for you to believe maybe he’s guilty, Tony?” 

“I wasn’t -” the man started, but Tony cut him off. 

“He was a  _captive_ , held by a king and experimented on,  _played_  with, and I couldn’t leave him there.” 

The words were deliberate, and Clint swallowed hard, a flood of saliva accompanying the nausea they brought. Tony watched him, a little sympathetic maybe but certainly not sorry. 

“You’re a bastard,” Clint told him, “and I’m gonna save your life so I can take my time kicking your ass.”

“That’s fair,” he said, and even managed a little sideways smile.


	7. Chapter 7

Clint’s always careful with him in a way that doesn’t feel patronising, somehow, and doesn’t feel afraid, and those’re the only careful he’s been familiar with. He just - he  _takes care_ , and Bucky’s been a big brother, been the best friend, been the goddamn Winter Soldier for too long to really be used to it. But he appreciates it, loves it, more than he’s managed to say yet. 

Like this, Clint’s hands above his shoulders, not on ‘em as he props himself up over Bucky; kneeling to one side of him, not over, not until he’s properly awake. And he never had to articulate it, never had to say what he needed, ‘cos Clint thinks and he works out what works, and he doesn’t always get it right but it’s important that he tries. 

So Bucky smiles a little, first signs of waking, and Clint brushes a kiss just over his right eyebrow, and just to the side of his eye. 

“So if I was an international fugitive from justice,” he says, quiet and low in deference to the morning, “would you come with me?” 

“Pretty sure we both are,” Bucky says, sleep still hiding in the cracks in his voice. He’s rewarded by a kiss just on the end of his nose. “Pretty sure the tower’s the safest place for us.” 

“Okay,” Clint says, “okay, but, what if we were fugitives from, let’s say, purely hypothetical -” 

“Sure it is,” Bucky says, and Clint’s left him the space that he can easily untangle himself from the sheet, can reach up to put his hands on Clint’s hips. Clint grins and kisses the softest skin just under his eye, and Bucky defies anyone not to smile in response to that. 

“ _Hypothetically_ ,” Clint says, “let’s say I was a fugitive from  _Asgardian_  justice -”

Bucky groans. Groans, and tugs Clint over until he gives in and shifts his leg, straddles Bucky’s hips and settles his weight there. Bucky arches up into him, just a little, just enough to be felt, and the next kiss to the corner of his mouth is a little wetter, ‘cos Clint couldn’t help but lick his lips. 

“ _Again?”_ Bucky says. 

Clint whines a little, buries his face in Bucky’s neck and hides a few kisses there. 

“He has the best snacks!” he says, mournful, and Bucky laughs and kisses the top of his head, trying to coax him up so he can reach him for more. 

“You’re an idiot,” Bucky tells him, “and I would follow you to the ends of the earth if I had to.”

“Not sure that’s gonna be far enough,” Clint says thoughtfully, ‘cos he knows how to treat the big moments, how to squash ‘em down so they can be tucked away safe. 


	8. Chapter 8

Sure, Clint has screaming nightmares, but everyone has screaming nightmares, or at least everyone he knows. The majority of them, the night is salvageable, ‘cos they’re not about what’s coming but what’s  _been_. It’s pretty easy to reassure himself with a quick text to Tasha which always gains a speedy and pissy response, or to ask JARVIS to quietly talk him down with a stream of banal facts. 

The ones about loss are a little harder, but the last little while he’s had Bucky right here next to him in all his splayed-limbs, bed-headed glory, and Clint can shove his face half-under Bucky’s back and breathe in everything he needs to of security and warmth. 

So the quiet little sneaking nightmares are kinda worse, actually. The ones where it’s not about letting someone down when death is on the line, but disappointment, instead. Just a quiet gentle reminder, like a sticky note on his soul, that he’s not supposed to be here. That he’s honestly fooling himself. The nightmares take his hand and remind him with compassion and a sorry smile that he’s just  _not good enough_ , but everyone around him is just too polite to say. 

How do you sleep after that? ‘cos the temperature’s still the temperature and the time is still the time, and Bucky’s still in his bed only this version’s too polite to be truthful.  _Those’_ re the nights that end with him at the range, nocking arrows until his arms’re shaking, pretending every bullseye is his own fuckin’ face. 

When the night eases into morning and their incompetent lack of curtains starts to tell, Bucky’ll come join him, sometimes with coffee, sometimes without. Sometimes with nothin’ but his boxers and his bed-head, still breathing slow and even like sleep doesn’t want to let him go. 

“Hey,” he mutters, those mornings, face tucked just under Clint’s ear, “I missed you this morning. Needed you.” 

And Clint can sometimes quit then for coffee and sour morning kisses; and Clint can occasionally believe it’s not a loving lie. 


	9. Chapter 9

Clint flinched back as the guy whirled around, but he’d already got his wrist caught in a silver-cold grasp, his hand still wrapped around the hilt of the sheathed knife that’d been all there was in the guy’s pocket. 

He glanced around quickly, but of course there was no other person within sight, that’d been precisely why he’d chosen this alley, this time. The man’s hand was tight and unrelenting and colder than the winter air. 

Confused, he looked down, saw silver-white fingers revealed by fingerless leather gloves; it was cool enough a sight to distract him from how much trouble he was in. 

“Shit, man, that’s  _awesome_ ,” he said, and the man frowned, clearly confused. “Unlike your taste in knives,” Clint continued, mouth running on without anything like permission, “this thing’s got the grace and balance of a fuckin’ cleaver.” 

“Cleavers do damage,” the guy said. 

“Ugh,” Clint said. “Hack.” 

That time, the guy’s frown was accompanied with the slightest thaw in his New York snow gray eyes. Like he wasn’t quite sure how to be amused, but something inside was getting there. 

“Yeah,” he said, “that’s what cleavers are generally for.” 

“Where’s the fuckin’ artistry?” Clint asked, tugging speculatively and making absolutely no progress against the grip of those wintry fingers. “Aaw, crap,” he said eventually, defeated, and looked up at the guy’s face. It was a prettier prospect, anyway. He was a little taller than Clint, broader, but if Barney was any indication Clint was due another growth spurt any time now and they were already almost at eye level. He was close enough to see the beautifully carved jawline that the guy’s unevenly chopped hair brushed, to trace the stubble with his eyes and get a little sidetracked by the guy’s beautifully soft mouth. 

“You’re an artist?” the man asked, and now the spring was making its way into his voice, too. Clint tried not to melt. 

“I’m an  _archer_ ,” he said, haughty like the Swordsman. “Which is way more impressive than whatever you -”

“Assassin,” the man said, and a whole bunch of the strength went out of Clint’s knees. He wobbled a little and the ice hand around his wrist tightened a little. 

“Aaw, death, no,” he said, faint and small and young. 

“You’re not my mission,” the man said, and the ice came back all at once, midwinter sculpting the curve of his mouth, not even close to capturing a smile. 

“I -” Clint said, helpless, “that should not be as hot as it is,” and he blushed bright and midsummer-warm, tugging again against a grip that flinched away suddenly, like it’d been burned. 

“Knife,” he said, low and cold, and Clint handed it over, careful not to make contact with the guy’s skin. “Go home, kid.” 

“Won’t be a kid forever,” Clint said, daring suddenly. “Couple more summers -”

“You’ll still be a punk,” the man said, vowels suddenly touched by Brooklyn, and Clint couldn’t help the wide grin. 

“Yeah, maybe,” he said, ‘cos Barney was pretty convinced of the same. “But a punk who can kick your ass, maybe. Give me time.” 

“Pretty much all I’ve got to give,” the man said, and something in his tone cracked a little like ice. 


	10. Chapter 10

“You can’t park there.”

The low, rough voice fought its way through the ringing in Clint’s ears, and he carefully cranked up his aids again, wincing when the sirens kicked back in.

“Excuse me?” he asked, every inch the polite and respectable hero that Steve frequently, vocally wished he would be.

“You can’t  _park_  there,” the woman said again. “It’s clearly signposted disabled parking, and you just flipped yourself upside down, so it’s –“ she waved, a tightly aggravated gesture, at where the ‘jet was abandoned haphazardly across the parking lot.

“We’ll be gone in just a minute, ma’am,” Clint told her, “and I’m pretty sure the fire-fighters are keeping all the regular shoppers out, so we’re doing our best not to inconvenience any-“

She snorted. It was an impressively dismissive sound.

“You’re a superhero,” she said, like the word was synonymous with ‘privileged able-bodied white guy’, which maybe – on reflection – a little too often it was. “What would you know about inconvenience?”

“It’s not –“ he said, caught a little off guard, “superheroes aren’t just… y’know people with disabilities can totally –“

“Name one,” she said, eyes narrowing.

“Charles Xavier,” he answered promptly.

“And the professor can park his flying whojamawotsit wherever he gosh-darned pleases,” she said, folding her skinny arms across her chest, drawing attention to her ‘I heart my gay grandson’ pin. “But until there are ramps to access all of the parking spots and clearance at the rear of every space, you’re gonna have to move your plane.”

“Hawkeye!”

Bucky was at the hatch in the side of the ‘jet, leaning against the frame with his arms crossed in front of him, sunlight gleaming off the metal.

“You comin’, Barton?”

“I’m coming!” he yelled, and then turned to the woman, giving her his best disarming smile. “We’re going. Sorry.” He signed that last, for good measure, and she cocked her head at him.

“Coulda just said you were deaf,” she grumbled, and he laughed.

“I’m deaf, he’s –“

“Pissed at you, get your ass moving,” Bucky interjected.

“- angry, pretty much constantly,” Clint said, “we’ve both got disabilities but you’re right, we totally didn’t need to park there.”

“Well thanks for saving us from the robots,” she said, grudging. “I guess this time you can get a pass.”

“Good of you,” he said, and laughed again. “Your grandson’s a lucky guy.  I’ll talk to Tony about those ramps, okay?”

“Talk to him about my  _number_ ,” she said with a wicked grin that took forty years off her age.

“Aaw, cougar,” he said, then raised his voice. “Hey Buck, I’m leavin’ you, I wanna marry –“

“Clarice,” she said, helpful, “and I’m only interested if you’ve got a tower.”

“I’ve got an apartment building in Bed-Stuy?” he said, fluttering his eyelashes, and she snorted again, like she got chatted up by B-list superheroes every day of the week.

“This isn’t a negotiation, sweet cheeks.”

“Excuse you,” he said, “I have a rugged and manly profile.”

“And she wasn’t talkin’ about your  _face,”_ Bucky said, low and directly into his ear, hand planted square on the aforementioned. Clint jumped, yelped, and Clarice and Bucky cackled at the blush he couldn’t fight down.


	11. Chapter 11

“Wow.” 

Tony took his time over the word, really feeling it out, his mouth open and round and dyed the cherry-red of the mildly unnerving punch. He’d tilted his sunglasses down so Bucky could see the yellow contacts, which Tony insisted was his modern take on demonology. As far as Bucky was concerned, it was half-assing it, from the tips of his non-existent horns to the toes of his shoes. At least, you had to assume those were his shoes, ‘cos no one else was gonna own  _snakeskin_.

Steve was nearby, trying not to choke on his own cup of the blood-red toxic mix, presumably in fear for his suit. At least he’d made an effort, with small fluffy wings pinned to the back of his white tie and tails, and a gently glowing circle of neon yellow glow sticks on his head.

“Jeez, Buck,” he eventually managed, red-faced, “what’re you -” 

He waved a hand vaguely at Bucky’s outfit, and Bucky folded his arms across his chest. Whatever the silver mesh shirt was made out of, it was cool when pressed against his skin, blissful in the heat of the Stark Hallowe’en party. The silver pants, on the other hand, were skin-tight and PVC, and riding up into all kindsa places Bucky didn’t want them. Aside from that he had green knee pads and elbow pads, barely laced back boots, a little strategic glitter that Clint’d insisted on and he couldn’t seem to remove.

“Sexy Doom Bot,” he said, like it was obvious, like the name didn’t make him want to punch something, a little. 

“Oh no,” Steve said, and slapped a hand over his eyes, while Tony’s smile grew devilish, grew wider. 

“Oh man,” he said, “please make all my Hallowe’en wishes come true and tell me we get -” 

“SILENCE, MINION!” Clint yelled, and Steve peeked and then groaned softly, his hand sliding down to cover his horrified mouth. Bucky didn’t get the problem. Clint was wearing a mask, black PVC booty shorts, black boots and a green hooded cape.

That was it.

Bucky was a definite fan of Sexy Victor Von Doom.

“This - this is the best day of my life,” Tony whispered. “JARVIS, get me the Latverian embassy on Skype!” 

Bucky slid in closer to Clint, sliding a cool metal hand onto his hip, taking a moment to appreciate his guy’s beautiful abs.

“Remind me how long we gotta stay?” he asked, thumb stroking back and forth across Clint’s skin. 

“After how long it took to get you into those pants?” Clint asked, his mask shifting a little with the width of his grin. 

“How long d’you reckon it’ll take to get me out of them?” His voice was pitched low, his hair brushing against Clint’s ear, and the slight catch in his breath was a beautiful goddamn thing. 

“Excuse me, sir,” Steve said, in his most proper voice, “is this guy bothering you?” 

“Have you learned nothing?” Clint boomed, in some kinda approximation of a supervillain voice. “None may touch Doom but that he wishes it.” 

“Nope,” Sam said, swinging by in his awesome Robocop suit. “No way he actually said that.” 

“Okay,” Clint said, his voice squeaking a little as Bucky pressed a kiss just under his ear, “later we’re playing Real Doom or Fake Doom. Right now I gotta go -  _fuck -_ install some hardware.” 

“That is not robotics talk,” Tony said, “that is not even close to robotics talk, somewhere Dummy is  _really sad_  and he doesn’t know why.” 

“At least I ain’t debauching any angels,” Bucky said, and Tony’s violent blush went all the way to the tip of his non-existent tail.


	12. Chapter 12

So a masquerade party for a bunch of costumed superheroes and the poor saps they worked with had probably seemed like a hilarious idea, once upon a time. And sure, the snacks weren’t bad, and there was a free bar for level 5s and below; Clint was opposed to paying for his own drinks on principle, so he’d carefully pick-pocketed the guy who was passed out behind a ficus, and for tonight he was… Agent Laurence Mellor, apparently. Still, there was something about this entire set-up that was just begging for some kinda super villain attack, and Clint was keeping an eye out for infiltration. 

In the interests of preparation -  _not_  laziness,  _Natasha -_ Clint’d hauled his old circus gear out from under the bed and strapped on a quiver; he stood by the purple. And at least he’d attempted something like effort, unlike the guy in the corner with the leather jacket and the shades, his hair pulled back in a messy knot. It was a lazy-ass costume, all the more annoying because it looked  _so good_. 

Clint helped himself to another of Laurence’s complementary beers and wandered over to get a closer look. When the guy eyed him suspiciously, he grinned wide and ingenuous. 

“Hawkeye, right?” The guy said, and Clint laughed. 

“What gave it away?”

Sunglasses smirked. “The guy know you have a weird stalker crush on him? That was his circus costume, right?” 

Clint cocked his head, then took a second to readjust his mask. 

“Well it looks like I’m not the only weird stalker,” he said, curious. “No way you look old enough to have seen Hawkeye at Carson’s.”

“I’m older than I look,” Sunglasses said, and his jaw clenched in a way that didn’t look like that was a good thing. “And I do my research.” 

“And you choose washed up superheroes as you specialist subject?” Clint asked, leaning against the wall and taking a casual sip of his beer. 

“Hawkeye ain’t anything like done.” He scowled at Clint, who felt a little wash of - gratitude? flattery? - go through him. “You seen that guy fight?” 

“On video,” Clint said, entirely and exactly truthful, even if it was mostly between his fingers, ‘cos all he could ever see were the things Trick and the Swordsman woulda beaten him for. 

Sunglasses whistled, low, and the genuine admiration made Clint grin down at his beer, ducking his head and biting his lip. 

The other man turned to lean his shoulder against the wall, leaning a little closer. 

“It’s a good effort, though,” he said, and even from behind the glasses Clint could feel his stare. One leather-gloved finger ran down Clint’s arm, shoulder to elbow, and the cool touch somehow left heat in its wake. “Didn’t think there was another set of biceps like this at SHIELD.” 

Clint cleared his throat. 

“You’d be surprised how much pushing those pencils take,” he said, the lame joke all he could come up with, and he was hopelessly grateful for the soft laugh. It drew back the aura of danger the guy projected like a curtain, spotlighted instead the soft lips, mischievous grin, and Clint eased in a little closer to appreciate them better. 

“So I got an early morning tomorrow,” Sunglasses said, and Clint grinned lopsided and small, ‘cos he knew all the blow-offs like the back of his hand.

“Sure,” he said, “same here,” and at least it had the grace to be true - Steve’d come back from his search victorious, apparently, and in the morning they were having a Bucky briefing. Didn’t exactly ease the disappointment, though, that he was getting - 

“So you know somewhere tucked away we can go now, maybe?” Another flash of that gorgeous smile, and Clint’s mouth dropped open as the guy’s hand slid onto his hip and holy hell, Clint thanked everything that was good in the world for spandex, just then. He swallowed, hard, and the beautiful smile faded a little from the guy’s face. “Unless -”

“No,” Clint said, “no less, definitely more.” 

(The smile, for the record, felt just as good as it looked.)


	13. Chapter 13

“Ugh,” Clint said, hoiking his dress up to around his knees so he wouldn’t trip on the damned thing,  _again_ , and pulling flyaway strands of wig away from his mouth. “That is just not  _fair_.” 

‘cos of course Bucky had claimed Dread Pirate Roberts while Clint was still gaping at his cards, at Tony’s cards, at the complete betrayal they’d dealt him. And of course Bucky looked hot as hell in the loose black shirt, the tight black pants, the close-tied mask. Even the little mustache was doing it for him, which he was hoping like hell wasn’t gonna be reflected in his porn habits any time soon. JARVIS kept an eye on that shit, he was pretty sure, and no way was he gonna let Tony think it was about  _him_. 

Tony was looking pretty good, actually. He’d come as a Nascar driver, possibly? Something that involved a close-cut suit covered in various patches of Stark subsidiaries and a pair of mirrored sunglasses. Steve, on the other hand, had kinda missed the whole ‘sexy’ aspect of most costumes and had come as a [giant freakin’ mushroom](http://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fi.pinimg.com%2F736x%2F32%2F04%2Fe7%2F3204e7585b62c628ce94460d41ef5db5--mushrooms-vintage-halloween-costumes.jpg&t=NDQ5M2RjODQ2ZDljZTNiNGQ4N2M1ZTkyNzVhNzg5ZTQyMDEyODE4NCxnbFdIa2Y5Qw%3D%3D&b=t%3ARv7UlJVMfQ9IvwO9DnXTzg&p=https%3A%2F%2Fwinterhawkkisses.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F166014005715%2Fim-going-with-the-first-thing-that-popped-into-my&m=1), and honestly he was freaking Clint out. It made him feel a little better about his own disastrous drag act, anyway, although even if he could only see half of Bucky’s face it wasn’t exactly difficult to notice that the asshole was  _laughing_. 

“The boots make the outfit, doll,” he said, and Clint made a face at him. 

“You really want me to take on gravity with  _heels_?” he asked, and Bucky - who had been making an effort, if his bitten down lips were any indication - bust out into a fresh round of cackling. The boots Tony’d provided with his outfit had actually been flat and red and pretty kickass, but Clint had broken the laces within five minutes of touching them and just shoved his feet into unlaced combat boots instead. 

“Aw screw you, and your sexy bandit thing,” Clint said, waving a dismissive hand and headed for the kitchen, where the beer lived. 

Couple hours later found him sitting, legs splayed, on the couch, a freshly opened beer dangling from his fingers and resting against his inner thigh. His wig was somewhere - last he’d seen, Bruce’d been wearing it, doing quietly hilarious impressions of Thor - and his dress was unlaced halfway down his chest. Bucky rounded the edge of the couch - still looking impeccable, of course, ‘cos that was just the kind of asshole he was - and almost tripped over himself when he caught sight of Clint. 

“Save it,” Clint said, lifting his beer and tilting his head back for a long swallow. “Heard it all.” 

“ _Fuck_ ,” Bucky said, soft and sounding a little shaken, and Clint let his beer dangle between his knees again, watching curiously as Bucky followed the motion with his eyes, as he visibly swallowed hard. 

“…seriously?” he asked, genuinely astounded. “ _This_  is what gets you?” 

“I fuckin’ -” Bucky’s voice was low and gravelly and oddly breathless, “ _Jesus_ , Clint, you got no idea, I -” he swallowed again. “I got to get my mouth on you, okay, you gotta let me -” 

His voice died away as Clint pushed himself to his feet, managing to do it without losing his balance even a little, and stepped in close enough that he could tease the barest kiss across Bucky’s mouth. 

“As you wish,” he said.


	14. Chapter 14

Bucky had almost stepped in when he saw sexy batgirl, the first time. She wasn’t sexy batgirl in the way of most sexy costumes, in the way of the sexy crayons mackin’ on each other in the hallway, or the sexy red and gold robot guy in the booty shorts who kept hittin’ on Stevie. She was sexy batgirl in that she was wearing a comics-accurate batgirl costume and she was, y’know,  _sexy_  - and more than capable of handling the drunk fratboys who had decided to hassle her some. Thirty seconds after he considered helping out, he was hauling their groaning bodies out onto the porch, kicking ‘em down the steps and telling them they weren’t welcome back. 

“Yo, Dick,” someone called, and Bucky whirled around, expectin’ to see one of the jerk fratboys’ jerk friends, his hands curling into fists automatically. It took him a second to spot the guy, ‘cos you just didn’t expect - he was perched on the arm of a streetlight like it was a park bench, cute green pixie boots kicking back and forth and silky yellow cape flapping a little in the wind. 

“How the hell -” he muttered. “Get down from there! You’re gonna cause property damage,” he hollered up at the guy, who started laughing straight off. 

“You’re worried about the goddamn streetlight?” he choked out. 

“You got your dumb ass up there, no one else’s fault if you get hurt,” Bucky said. 

“Well ain’t you just the milkman of human kindness,” the guy said, leaning back in a way that had Bucky lunging forward, ‘cos his asshole tendencies were pretty much all talk anyhow. He watched, open mouthed, as the guy grabbed the streetlight with both hands, let his ass slide off and hooked his knees over it, hanging down like he was a goddamn trapeze. 

His hair was too light for his costume, but the rest was accurate, down to the tiny green trunks and the flesh colored pantyhose. Bucky had gone for the unquestionably cooler version, skintight and black and blue, but this guy’s Dick still managed to be incredibly hot. 

 _Grayson_. His Dick  _Grayson_. 

Shit. 

“Get your ass down from there before you kill yourself,” he yelled, and the guy threw him an inverted salute before doing something incredibly gymnastic that ended with a tuck and a roll and a grin way too close for Bucky’s state of mind. 

“The big brother thing part of the costume, Nightwing, or does it come natural?” Robin asked, and close up he was a lot bigger than he ought to be, in that costume. He smirked a little with half his mouth, and paired with the costume there was something a little filthy about it. Bucky licked his lips. 

“Brotherly ain’t exactly the word,” he said, daring, and Robin’s eyes darkened. 

“Fuck it,” Robin said, and the arm he wrapped around Bucky’s waist was muscular as all hell. “How often d’you get the opportunity to make out with yourself?” 


	15. Chapter 15

“No more sugar until we get home, Charlie, or I’m not gonna sell you to the circus.” 

“Daaad,” Charlie whines, kicking at the crisp leaves that’ve gathered at this gateway, “that joke is  _so old_.” 

Clint folds his arms across his chest, the movement made awkward by the pair of plastic pumpkin buckets he’s carrying. 

“What d’you know from old,” he says, “you’re, like, five. No more sugar until we get home or I won’t pay for circus school this summer, how about that?” 

“Ugh,” Charlie says, and when did he learn to roll his eyes that dramatically? Clint is pretty sure it’s all down hill from here, slick-sliding hand-basket down to puberty hell. “You’re such a - woah.” 

“Woah? What’s a woah when it’s at ho - ooooly crap.” 

Either this place has the best Hallowe’en decorating that Clint has ever seen, or they’ve taken a left turn somewhere and wound up in a horror movie. The whole place looks like it’s about to fall apart, strung together with cobwebs and dried out ivy; if it weren’t for the pumpkin grinning candlelight at them from the steps he’d think it was abandoned, left to slowly decay. 

“Maybe we should skip this one, buddy,” he says, a slight chill shivering its way up his spine. “If we start headin’ home we can put on Hocus Pocus before bed.”

Charlie chews on his lip a little, clearly torn, shifting his weight from foot to foot. “I guess,” he says eventually, reluctant, and then looks up at Clint with his puppy dog eyes at full force. “But… photo?” 

Charlie’d really worked hard at his costume, this year. Sure, Clint’d done the actual  _sewing_ , but Charlie’d practiced night after night to make sure he could stay on the stilts, could move and run and caper about like Jack Skellington did. The elongated limbs - he’s holding sticks with bony hands on the ends, it’s why Clint’s carrying his treats - and the pin-striped suit set off the carefully painted make-up to perfection, and he’s insisted on photos all night. 

“One,” Clint says. “ _One_. And don’t get too close.” 

Charlie grins and claps Jack’s hands together, running a little way onto the lawn; Clint moves so Charlie’s framed by the house, so the pumpkin’s positioned just exactly right, taking his time so they won’t have to do this twice. There’s a low groaning creak from somewhere around the side of the house and Charlie’s evil grin wavers a little; screw perfect framing - Clint quickly clicks and fumbles his phone away, hooking the buckets over his arm and beckoning. 

“C’mon, buddy,” he says, turning, “let’s - holy  _shit!”_

“Sorry,” the man says, holding his hands up, backing off, and Clint feels like an idiot for letting himself get worked up. Sure, the guy’s a little creepy looking - long dark hair, face shaded by a ball cap, oversized army coat and black leather gloves - and sure, he’s hanging around a murder house on Hallowe’en, but - 

Clint’s kinda forgotten the point he’s making. 

“Charlie,” he snaps out, “time to go.” 

“Sorry,” the guy says again, his voice soft, kinda rusted away, like he’s somehow fallen out of the habit of using it. “Didn’t mean to scare you.” 

“We’re not scared,” Charlie says, his voice shaking a little too much to quite wave the defiant flag. 

“‘Course not,” the guy says, like it’s not even in doubt. And then he tilts his head up a little so the streetlight on the road opposite picks out highlights on his face, and Clint can’t help noticin’ that his smile is all kinds of beautiful, and several different colors of sad. “I like your costume.” 

“Thanks,” Clint says, clumsy and brusque, ‘cos he’s busy reminding himself of his track record, of how disastrous it is to fall in love with someone just on the basis of their beautiful goddamn smile. “Happy Hallowe’en.” He slings his arm around Charlie, gets a bony hand right in the kidney for his trouble, and doesn’t notice until they’ve made it home that he’s lost his goddamn phone. 


	16. Chapter 16

Clint rolls his head against the back of the couch, staring at the side of Bucky’s head like that’ll do anything to help him understand the annoyed mumbling, the poorly articulated, half-concealed by chin-scratching, basically unintelligible mumbling that Bucky’s been keeping up off and on all evening. 

“Maybe you shoulda gone with Steve if you wanted someone to talk back to you,” Clint says, finally giving in and talking over Bucky like an asshole. “I mentioned the headphones, right? The completely inability to hear you?” 

Okay that,  _that_  he can read without issue, and Clint gives him the finger. 

“ _You’re_  the dumbass,” he says, “my costume is  _awesome_.” 

The blue light in the corner flashes and Bucky flinches, then acts like he didn’t. Clint hauls himself off the couch, grabbing the bowl of candy from the table and pulling back all the goddamn chains, bolts and locks that Bucky’d snuck in and attached to the door, one night. Clint hadn’t actually noticed until he automatically tried to open it with his eyes still half-closed, brain still half-dreaming, and had almost broken his nose when he walked into the still closed door. 

“Hey big green,” Clint says, and high fives the tiny hulk; his enormously outsized fists vibrate a little and Clint is a little sad he’s missing whatever awesome sound effect comes with ‘em. Watching Bruce despair over the various Hulk merchandise is one of life’s greatest joys. 

Whatever noise it’d made it summons Bucky, who presses up against Clint’s back and looks over his shoulder, ‘cos Bucky apparently has no clue what his proximity does to Clint. Clint takes a deep breath, in through the nose and out through the mouth, and offers the bowl to tiny Hulk. He can’t hear a word the kid’s saying, but the tiny victory dance is enough - full size candy bars bring all the kids to the yard, and Clint’s doorbell’s been going all night. Clint shovels a couple bars into the kid’s bag - no way he’s doing anything with those mighty green fists - and gives him a cheerful wave. 

Bucky locks, bolts, chains Clint’s door shut again, and Clint glares at his back as he heads for the couch. 

“I know you can hear me, asshole. How difficult have you gotta make this whole process, huh? Can’t we just leave the door open like normal -”

“- hate Hallowe’en,” Bucky’s saying, when he rounds the couch, and Clint rolls his eyes. 

“Yeah, no kidding,” he says. 

“ - security risk,” Bucky says, ‘cos apparently he still isn’t picking up context cues as to when Clint gives a damn about what he’s saying. 

“… _seriously?”_ Clint asks, and Bucky’s jaw tightens and he looks down and away for all of a second before he scowls up at Clint again. 

“Why’d you think I put them on the —– in the first place?” 

“Because you live to make my life more annoying?” Clint asks, and Bucky stares down at his hands and mumbles something. Clint lets out a frustrated noise, louder than he’d meant, maybe, ‘cos Bucky flinches again. “Case in point,” Clint says, and Bucky jerks his head back, his hair flicked out of his face. 

“Because I can’t let —thing happen to you,” Bucky says. 


	17. Chapter 17

“Whose bright idea was it to give Barton a knife?” Tony asked, loud and intrusive. Bucky had to work hard to ignore him, his hands careful as he wrapped the clean cotton around Clint’s forearm, gentle and sure.

“I’m a pumpkin genius,” Clint said, stubborn.

“Pumpkins aren’t exactly known for their scientific contributions.” Tony peered at the one Clint’d been carving, at the sharp upward curve at the corner of its mouth. “Y'know,” he said, “this wouldn’t be half bad if it wasn’t for the blood stains.”

“I don’t feel the need to explain my art to you, Tony,” Clint said, his tiny wince almost unnoticeable as Bucky tied off the bandage.

“Shame you can’t finish it,” Tony said, “guess I’ll be taking the silver home again.”

The Avengers pumpkin carving competition dated back to when they’d first started, when it’d been all they could do to fight together rather than with each other, when any chance of a *friendly* competition had been seized on with all available hands. It was about the only thing that Steve got aggressively competitive about, and the gold medal was worn around triumphantly for at least a week after it was done. Who took silver was always hotly contested, and Clint had bet Bucky that this was his goddamn year.

“Yeah?” Bucky had asked, and had darted his tongue out to wet the corner of his mouth, teasing a little. “And what do you want if you win?”

“Whatever you’ll give me,” Clint had replied, and the way his eyes had dropped to Bucky’s mouth - Clint was not a subtle man, and Bucky was painfully grateful for it.

“Hand me the knife,” Clint said, pushing to his feet with his jaw set, and Bucky snorted.

“Not a chance,” he said. He eyed the pumpkin thoughtfully, then went to rummage in one of the endless bowls of candy that’d taken up residence in the tower of late.

When he came back he’d snagged a tube of superglue, too, and he carefully glued candy corn into place, one on each side of the mouth, transforming the pumpkin into a smugly grinning blood-sucker, the unnerving bloodstain wiped away and replaced with Tony’s Iron Man touch-up paint.

“Silver’s in the bag,” Clint said when he was done, amused and admiring, and Bucky took hold of his arm, ran the gentlest thumb across his bandage.

“How confident are you?” he asked, and echoed Clint’s slowly spreading grin. “Confident enough to claim your prize now?”

“Whatever you’ll give me,” Clint said, and his eyes were dark and hot, and Bucky didn’t hesitate in leaning forward, in pressing his mouth against Clint’s jack o'lantern grin.


	18. Chapter 18

“Holy blueberry muffins!” Tony yelped. “Elsa, I didn’t see you come in!” 

Bucky was wearing his habitual glare, but the effect was kinda lessened when paired with his current outfit. Tony woulda told him off for not making an effort if Bruce wasn’t a completely different size to him, ‘cos big green - bless his fashion-backward heart - was the only one among them who might’ve been responsible for the green v-neck shirt, the brown corduroy pants with the subtle flare. 

Currently his glare was focused somewhere around Tony’s chest, and it took him a second before - “the nipples, right?” He grinned when Bucky’s eyes snapped up to his face, his cheekbones washing a subtle pink. “Don’t blame me, that one’s all on Joel Schumacher. Wait’ll you see Steve, the rubber does wonderful things for his ass.” 

Bucky looked distant for a second, then shuddered, then downed whatever was in his cup. It was one of the blue cups - superheroes only, that stuff could basically kill a regular person, so he was gonna have to keep a close eye just as soon as - 

“Hey,” he asked, “you seen Barton?” 

“No,” Bucky said shortly. He scratched at the stubble that he hadn’t even bothered getting rid of, half-assing whatever costume he was aiming for. 

“Lemme guess,” Tony said. “Groot?” 

The potted ficus in the corner rustled industriously, then sprouted a face, painted with streaks of green and brown, under piled brown hair with leaves woven through it. 

“I,” Jane said impressively, “am Groot.” 

“Well I ain’t,” Bucky said. He looked over Tony’s shoulder, caught sight of something across the room, and managed to somehow simultaneously roll his eyes and look impossibly fond, an expression he only ever wore around two people. “Zoinks,” he added, flatly. 

In the corner of Tony’s eye there was a blur of fake fur, then someone leaped into Bucky’s arms, trusting themselves to him entirely, not a moment of hesitation. 

“Holy flea-infested costume rental!” Tony exclaimed, and Barton gave him the fingerguns from where he was comfortably perched. 

“Rice Robin rimpression,” he said, and Tony snorted. 

“Thanks, Scoob,” he said. Clint grinned, wide and satisfied under the Scooby Doo head that was perched atop his, and clambered down. “And you’re  _Shaggy_!” he exclaimed, finally getting Bucky’s vaguely ‘70s thing, but Bucky wasn’t paying him any attention. He’d hooked his finger into the collar around Clint’s neck, and to say the archer was panting for it was both accurate and a terrible pun. Tony promised himself to tell Steve, later, make him make that excellent face. 

Tonight was a night for couple’s costumes, apparently, and Tony spun around to avoid the slightly childhood-destroying image of Shaggy frantically making out with his dog and set off in search of Thor instead; with any luck he had a giant aggressive raccoon to find. 


	19. Chapter 19

“I mean, sure, I guess,” the guy said, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly, but Tony had already gone ahead without his say so, ‘cos that was Tony right down to the ground. Steve was doing something involving light, inching the barn door back and forth and shifting his camera by degrees. Bucky just hauled his shirt over his head, amused at the muffled squawk from the farmer guy they were all inconveniencing, and followed the rack of clothes that Rhodey was pushing into the barn. 

Barton - Bucky kinda assumed the guy was Barton, the clumsily painted sign with the arrows stuck in it hadn’t looked all that old - wandered into the barn behind them, a one-eyed lab ambling along at his heels. Bucky crouched down to pet the grinning dog, then looked up at Barton with a grin of his own. 

“Sorry, you don’t mind, do you?” 

Barton shrugged, smiling lopsided and friendly. “As far as guard dogs go, Lucky makes a good waste disposal system,” he said. “Just keep him away from pizza if you wanna get yourself fed.” 

Bucky skinned off his sweatpants while he was down there, standing up in just his boxer-briefs and honestly kinda flattered at the way the guy’s eyes strayed. It wasn’t that he wasn’t used to the attention - Steve’d been using him as a model for a while, now, and his name was getting out there - but he was used to people a little more slick. There was something about this guy, his plaid shirt and callused hands, that made Bucky wanna preen a little. Made him wanna feel those calluses against his shoulders, the splintered wall of the barn against his back. 

“Pizza’s only for cheat days,” Bucky said, and the guy’s mouth fell open. 

“Wow,” he said, “what’re you bein’ punished for?” and Bucky laughed, somehow even more flattered at the way the guy looked at his  _face_. 

“Oh, probably somethin’ terrible in a previous life,” he said, taking the pressed gray pants and white shirt from Rhodey’s hands without once looking at him, without looking away from sun-bleached hair and amused blue eyes. 


	20. Chapter 20

The blond one - Holtzmann? - was staring at him again. Clint sidled towards the door, unnerved in almost exactly the way that Tasha sometimes unnerved him, not exactly paying attention to where he was walking and, as a result, walking straight into the damned door frame. 

“You’re adorable,” she said, in that husky voice that was honestly  _doing_  things to Clint. “I’m gonna call you Kevin.” 

“Um,” he said.

“His name’s Clint,” Bucky told her, and yeah, husky, that was a thing Clint’d always loved, always, just as long as he’d known Bucky. 

“Does he need a license?” Holtzmann asked, and Clint would honestly be offended if there weren’t implied collars, right up there, right in front. 

“Uh, ma’am?” Steve said, and she cataloged him, dismissed him, easy as breathing, and Clint was officially confused. Like - Steve was basically the perfection of manhood, right there, and anyone would find him attractive, surely? No one would choose Clint over him. That was why it was okay that he watched Bucky move sometimes, found himself all caught up on the angle of his jaw, ‘cos the guy was Captain America’s closest possible friend, which meant that Clint could do anything he chose and never be noticed not meeting the guy’s standards. 

“Well that’s adorable,” she said. “You got some kinda factory for the adorable blonds here? ‘cos if so, some parameters could do with shifting, I have some requests.” 

“Hands off my blonds,” Bucky growled, and Clint looked around, wondering a little about the plural, right before Bucky tugged him in and tucked him behind his back. 

“Er,” Clint fumbled, “yours?” and Bucky’s ears went red, bright and obvious and only deepening, and Clint just figured ride or die, right? He leaned forward to plant a kiss just behind the beacon that was Bucky’s ear and hoped that die wasn’t an option, just now. 

At least they had the professionals around, if it was. 


	21. Chapter 21

“There’s some kinda big bad wolf joke, here, but I can’t quite get it,” Bucky said, and Clint ignored him, still puffing industriously in the direction of Bucky’s cup. 

“I just -” Steve pulled out a chair, carefully out of Clint’s huff zone, and cradled his drink close to his face - “I kinda want to ask, but I also know that I’ll -”

“Spiiiiiice,” Clint hissed, a little Smeagol, a little Kaa, and Steve blew across the surface of his coffee before responding. 

“If you note,” he complained, “I didn’t even  _ask,”_ as Clint blew away one last waft of steam from the opening-door-created breeze. 

“Expecting reason from him is like buildin’ a house of straw,” Bucky said, and then, “nah, that’s not it.” 

“Why would you -” Clint said, and gestured illustratively at Bucky’s cup, at the adulterated, doctored,  _ruined_  coffee within. 

“Why would you  _not?”_ Bucky asked. “Seriously, coffee ain’t been the same since they quit adding chicory.”

“Y’know, it’s times when you sound like my gramps that make me question my life choices,” Clint told the ceiling, petting the side of his coffee mug and making little hushing noises under his breath. 

“There is something seriously wrong with you,” Steve said, focused on his coffee and therefore indiscriminate. 

“There’s maybe something in ‘let me in’,” Bucky said absently, “but the pig association is a little disturbing.” 

“Especially when Tony’s the only one with hairs on his chinny chin chin,” Clint said, helpfully. 

Steve let his head drop to the tabletop with a groan. 

“I just wanted  _coffee_ ,” he said, plaintive. 

“Well  _someone_  got shitty fall flavoring,” Clint said. 

“Well  _someone_ better quit bitchin’ if he wants any blowing tonight,” Bucky said, and accepted Clint’s congratulatory joke-finding high-five with a satisfying sip of pumpkin spice. 


	22. Chapter 22

The entrance warning didn’t flash red - it’d been a slow day, this early in October - so Clint jumped near outta his skin when the guy appeared in front of him. 

“Holy sh-oot, man, I’m the one that’s supposed to scare  _you!”_

On closer inspection - of course it had to be  _this_  guy, back for more. He’d gone through about ten minutes before, him and his tiny buddy, who’d honestly had a light in his eyes like he was gonna take on the world, undead or no.  _This_  guy, brunet guy, he looked more like he was ready to laugh at it, but he’d kick its ass if it pushed him. Clint, same way he did about five times a day in holiday season, had fallen a little in love. 

“Your guy trapped in the hall of mirrors?” Clint asked. “‘cos Maisie’s in that rocking chair a little down the hall, and she’s the one who’s better placed to help you -”

He stuttered to a stop, flushed pink and speechless, when the guy’s callused hand carefully cupped his cheek. He ducked in a little closer and Clint tilted his head, automatic, and felt like an idiot when the guy peered closely at his nose. 

“Yeah, I thought so,” he said, low and kinda pissed, and Clint tensed up, not sure what the hell was goin’ on, not sure what the hell he was supposed to expect. 

“Look,” he said, “you’re not supposed to -”

“Ain’t exactly like mummies are known for their bloodstains. How come you’re bleeding?” 

Clint frowned, blinked at him a little, thrown off balance in every sort of way. Fake thunder rolled, and fake lightning flashed, and hey, turned out the guy’s eyes were heartbreak-blue. 

“I - er,” he said, articulate as ever, “it’s, y’know, perils of the job. Some asshole can’t take a jump-scare, deals with his psychological trauma fists first.” 

The guy’s thumb moved, stroking whisper-soft across the skin of Clint’s cheek. Something deeper in the house laughed, long and low. 

“You get health insurance?” he asked, and Clint couldn’t help snorting, even with how much it ached. 

“Bro, I shoot arrows for a living,” he said, “and occasionally wrap myself in bandages that are almost all a costume and get up in people’s faces. No way anyone’s insuring me.” 

“Arrows?” the guy said, and then his eyes went wide and the bare light available hinted at the depth of his blush. “Holy shit, you’re the guy. The Amazing Hawkeye.” 

Clint stepped back a little, spread his hands, grinned a particularly painful grin. 

“The amazing ain’t obvious?” he asked, his voice practically dripping with sarcasm, but the guy had collected himself a little, was smirking at him like Clint wasn’t used to, like he saw something he liked. 

“Yeah,” he said, voice low and intent and not mocking, not even a little. “Yeah, I guess it is.” 


	23. Chapter 23

Clint stood on the back of his shopping cart, scooting with one foot past the New Fall Fashions in ugly mustard yellow, reaching out at the last second to snag some leering pumpkin socks that’d honestly look hilarious with Steve’s old man pants. One of the wonderful things about Steve was how  _polite_  he was, how any initial outlay on appalling items was more than repaid by how earnestly he’d  _wear_  ‘em. 

Tempting as it was to find something uglier - to find  _lots_  of things uglier and get Steve to guilt them onto the team - Clint had a destination in mind and rolled cheerfully onward toward the towering monsterpiece of black and white and orange balloons that guarded the entrance to Hallowe’en. 

Hallowe’en’s gotta be a favorite when you’re a kid who’d never managed  _quite_  enough to eat. Barney’d always half-assed his costumes, practiced looking pitiful; Clint’d always gone as overboard as his budget would allow. One year he’d cooked up so much fake blood that he’d even got a new pair of sneakers out of the deal when he was still leaving bloody footprints the day after, and the hours scrubbing carpet had been more than worth it for the winter of dry feet. 

He lingered at the entrance to the aisle for a few minutes, earnestly comparing prices on a set of scary-light skulls to go around the door, ‘cos he was never gonna quite be used to having money. After a moment, after a movement, after the hair started to stand on the back of his neck, Clint smiled. 

“You can join me, y’know,” he said, casual, carefully hiding his pleased. 

There was another pause - long enough for Clint to decide, to toss the more expensive set into his cart with a little thrill of now he could  _do_  that, of now he was buying for  _years to come -_ and then Bucky appeared behind him, looking as casual as it was possible to look clad head to toe in black leather. 

“We should get you a motorbike,” Clint said, thoughtful. “Or at least a helmet, help you blend in.” 

“You’re not supposed to be out alone,” Bucky said, annoyed and intent, and Clint rolled his eyes. 

“Look,” he said, “so far you don’t know me so well. It’s important you know that if someone’s threatening my life that pretty much just means it’s Thursday. No one else would be willing to come shopping for inflatable skeletons -” holy  _crap_ , inflatable skeletons, Clint grabbed two to guard his door - “and I ain’t exactly helpless myself.” 

“You didn’t ask me.” Bucky’s beautiful mouth was edging into something that definitely couldn’t be termed as a pout, not without a trick of the light and a world of wishful thinking. Clint was up to the challenge. 

“I didn’t ask anyone,” he said, ‘cos rejection wasn’t exactly his thing.

“So, what, you just assumed that no one wanted to come?” 

“Honestly? The train of thought didn’t even stop at that station,” Clint said, staring intently at packets of fake web. “I mean, who’s gonna?” 

Bucky reached over his shoulder, grabbed an oversized fake spider, studied it thoughtfully. 

“Me,” he said, simple statement, settling into Clint’s stomach. 

“Yeah,” he said, “to  _protect_  me,” and Bucky edged around until he could make earnest eye contact of beautiful fuckin’ blue. 

“Every Thursday,” he said, intent. 


	24. Chapter 24

Bucky grew colder as they went in deeper, jaw clenched and eyes like ice, and Clint - Clint couldn’t stop his hands from shaking. Flashes of blue, and laughter at the edge of his hearing, and still his biggest fear was that he wouldn’t be able to aim true.

There was frost on the walls now. Whatever the hell dwelt in the depth of this house, its movement resonating like a spider moving on its web, it knew exactly which strands to pull; Bucky’s hand tightened on his gun. Clint wanted to reach out, wanted to rest his hand on the vulnerable nape of Bucky’s neck and have it taken as reassurance, but instead he clenched his hands around his bow and flinched from a doorway that spilled whimpers in Bobbi’s voice, tripping over his own feet.

“*Barton*,” Bucky snapped, grabbing his arm and steadying him before shoving him back to his feet.

“Sorry,” Clint told him, and he was in so many ways - why couldn’t it’ve been Tasha here instead of him? She knew how to use her fear, hone it into a weapon. Clint was more like a bomb waiting to go off, fragile and indiscriminate.

“ - thing worki - ” crackled in Clint’s ear, and he tapped his hearing aids, cleared his throat.

“Tony?”

“ -nt? -ear me?”

Bucky had stopped in his tracks, turned to watch him, every inch of him the Winter Soldier, and Clint wasn’t sure whether that was reassuring or terrifying. He knew he’d give just about everything he had, at least, to see Bucky grin.

“Tony, can you hear me?”

“ - working, genius,” Tony said, coming through suddenly clear, his voice dismissive. “Barnes’ radio isn’t, I take it?”

“Guess not,” Clint said, and tried not to take it personally when Tony’s response was an exasperated sigh.

Bucky tugged at his ear, cocked his head a little, looked confused, and Clint shrugged.

“Great,” Tony said, succinct, and then - a little quieter, like he was talking to someone else, like he didn’t mean to be heard - “pointless trying to explain to him, fuckin’ useless -”

His voice cut out, gone like it’d never been there. Clint noted, with a dull sense of awful inevitability, that the walls around them were his nicotine-stained childhood wallpaper, peeling in some places, in others splintered and dented with fractures from feet and fists.

“Shit,” he said, quiet and hopeless and yeah, useless, heavy with it.

He wanted, all of a sudden, to quit struggling. Just sit here. Just wait. It wasn’t like he would do any good, anyway. It wasn’t like he could hold his hands still.

“Hey,” a voice said, and it took a moment ‘cos it wasn’t something that fit here. It wasn’t Battle Bucky, fully equipped with fifty functioning accessories, quiet and deadly and perfectly still. This was movie night couch slap fights Bucky, popcorn hogging dick; this was the voice of a guy who knew how to grin, who knew exactly how beautiful he was when he did it, and even with everything that was going on the corner of Clint’s mouth twitched a little upward.

“Hey,” Bucky said, “I’ve got you.”

And just for a second he let up the tension in the hands around his gun, held it one-handed so he could reach out and tangle warm fingers with Clint’s - just for a second, calloused thumb-sweep, gentle pressure, but it worked fuckin’ miracles to still the trembling in Clint’s hands.


	25. Chapter 25

“Y’know, this really wasn’t the way I wanted to get you to come home with me,” Bucky said. 

Bucky was really pretty, up close. Clint had always kinda admired him from a distance, passing in corridors, across the width of the lunch hall, but he’d mostly gotten the long hair and the angry and the occasional heartbreakingly beautiful smile. That was the kinda smile angels would fall in love with, Clint thought wisely, and Bucky huffed out a laugh. 

“You realise you’re saying this out loud, right?” he asked, and Clint considered that for a second. 

“I didn’t realise green was a feeling,” he said, and threw up on Bucky’s shoes. 

Turned out Bucky had a pretty impressive collection of swearwords stored behind his pretty face, and a huge first-aid kit with packets of alcohol wipes in his trunk. But he was still gentle when he pushed Clint into the passenger seat and belted him in, and he cranked down the window so Clint could feel the breeze on his face and maybe not be sick some more. 

“My dad’s gonna kill me,” he moaned, and Bucky sighed. 

“Ain’t your fault some asshole spiked the punch,” he said, and Clint choked on a laugh. 

“Fault’s never been much of an issue, with him,” he said, and maybe he was a little too serious, ‘cos Bucky turned on his blinker and took a road that didn’t go anywhere close to Clint’s home. 

“Gimme your phone,” he said, and Clint fumbled it out and squinted his way through unlocking it, handing it over into Bucky’s callused hand. 

“Hey, Mr Barton? This is James Barnes,” Bucky said, in his homecoming king voice, his valedictorian voice, the kinda voice that planned for a future Clint could only picture as if it was onscreen. “I’m real sorry,” he said, “but Clint’s ride left without him, and I didn’t want to put you out any so he’s coming back to mine.” 

There was a growling voice at the other end of the phone, pissed but not all the way through to angry, and Clint slid down a little in his seat. 

“That’s fine,” Bucky said, “I’ll have him back bright and early to you, sir,” and then he flipped it shut and tossed it back into Clint’s lap. 

“You’re my hero,” Clint said, maybe a little too earnest, and Bucky laughed a little. 

“Again,” he said, with a short sideways look, “not quite how I was picturin’ it, although I guess this’ll do.” 

“You thought, what, shining armor?” Clint asked. “Noble steed?” 

“Keep your mouth off my daydreams,” Bucky said, with a sideways sorta smile and a rising flush, and Clint figured he was allowed to rest his hand on top of Bucky’s on the gearshift for a second, give his hand a promising sorta squeeze. 


	26. Chapter 26

“Weakness,” Thor says, in a moment of rarely sober honesty. 

“Gerbils,” Tony tells them, ‘cos those moments are, for him, nonexistent. 

Natasha won’t answer the question, and Bruce won’t meet anyone’s eye, and everyone laughs at Clint when it’s his turn and he tells them it’s Tasha. 

“I can’t say I blame you.” Tony swirls his glass. “She could probably kill any one of us here in ten different ways.” 

“Twelve,” Natasha says blandly, but she weaves her fingers into Clint’s hair and scratches at his scalp lightly, so he knows she gets what he means. That his nightmares are about  _loss -_ and Loki, sure, but mostly about the part where he hurt her. “Seventeen,” she says after a moment’s quiet contemplation, “if it’s you.” 

Tony sputters and blusters and lets out about a thousand words without really saying anything. 

Then Bucky, who’s been frowning into the distance, says his biggest fear is himself and that’s it, game’s over. 

So it’s no real surprise that the kitchen’s occupied in the middle of the night, and Clint pours two coffees without asking, sets a steaming cup by a clenched metal fist and takes the seat next to his, the weird lighting making it seem like they’re actors in a play. 

Sometimes they fuck, on nights like this. It’s a crude way to say it, but there ain’t no better, ‘cos it’s as much about falling asleep coated, maybe, in fluids, but also in exhaustion that’s somehow clean. That’s what gives Clint the courage to reach over and carefully uncurl silver fingers so he can slip his own between them. 

“I get it,” he says. “I mean. I don’t get it, but I get it, kinda.” 

“Articulate,” Bucky says. 

“I get wishing people’d stop telling you it ain’t your fault,” Clint says, and Bucky looks up at him, kinda startled. “I get being scared that it’s all still there.” 

Bucky lets out a long breath and slings his free arm around Clint’s shoulders, rests his hand on the back of Clint’s neck and pulls him in. Clint’s expecting kisses but instead he gets Bucky’s forehead resting against his for a second, his features blurred up close, and it lurches in his stomach unfamiliarly. And then Bucky ducks in close so he can get those kisses he wanted, gentle and hot and slow and teasing, and they make a home for themselves amongst the lurchings in his stomach, and shit, all of a sudden he’s  _terrified_. 


	27. Chapter 27

The slow peace of it seeped into him with the sunshine that spilled over the bed, a gentle caress of golden warmth over his scarred shoulder, the back of his neck. He was alone in the bed save for the tumble of sheets, but this wasn’t the kind of waking that needed an arm slung over him to weigh him down and remind him who he was.

Bucky stretched, felt the twinges of recently melted bruises and formerly broken bones, felt the ironclad and untouchable conviction of a job well done. The other twinges and aches, they made him push into them and grin into his pillow, satisfied and smug.

He didn’t have to move when the front door clicked open, nudged wide by a hip and the patter of clawed feet. He laughed under his breath at the gentle patter of spilled coffee on linoleum, dismayed swearing, and figured for the good of the sheets he should push himself upright, hitch his flannel pants a little higher and shuffle out and down the stairs.

Clint’s aids weren’t in, a difference in how he held himself, but he didn’t startle at hands on his hips and the lips against the corner of his jaw; he leaned right back into Bucky like they were halfway through somethin’, easy and comfortable and never gonna be finished.


	28. Chapter 28

It probably isn’t the most usual thing, that they have a welcome mat under the window. Clint kicks off his shoes and closes the window behind him, not even a squeak to it - Bucky tends to deal with fighting with Steve, these days, with elbow grease - and can’t decide whether to be grateful or sad that Kate’s clearly got Lucky tonight. It delays their reunion, delays slobber and hair everywhere and Lucky somehow finding and treading on each and every goddamn bruise, but it opens up other possibilities.

He’s been gone long enough that Bucky’s rearranged the furniture like he’s been threatening, using the couch to separate the apartment a little more into rooms. Clint’s fine with it, as it goes, but he can already see himself collapsing onto the coffee table instead after one too many beers.

There are worse things; Bucky’s got a goddamn beautiful laugh.

He sheds his quiver and bow at the foot of the stairs, tucked to one side enough that no one’ll trip over them, and climbs up to their room on his socked feet, quiet but not careful. Quiet but not careful Bucky can sleep through, these days, like his subconscious has taken to recognising the asshole he’s shacked up with. Like Clint’s becoming just a part of what home means.

(He tries not to think about it too hard. He’s scared shitless of how much it means.)

Clint’s aware he should shower, but instead he just shucks off his clothes and leaves them in the corner. With any luck, come morning, the sheets’ll need changing anyway - or, if not, a shower’s always better with two. He brushes his teeth at least, too tired and aching to do anything more, and laughs at himself in the mirror ‘cos he’s bruised to hell and back and he’s still got a grin that won’t quit.

Bucky’s wrapped around Clint’s pillow, sleeping deep and defiant, but Clint’s weight on the mattress has him rolling over automatically, wrapping himself around as much of Clint as he can manage. He’s scowling and his hair’s a fuckin’ nightmare and he’s the most beautiful thing Clint’s ever seen, just like always.

“Hey baby,” Clint whispers into the half-light of home, brushing the tangled mess away from Bucky’s forehead so he can press a kiss there, instead. “I’m home.”


	29. Chapter 29

Clint is giggling helplessly into Bucky’s shoulder, ‘cos he’s had a couple too many glasses of champagne, fished outta superheroes’ hands ‘cos they ‘can’t appreciate it right’. He’s a big guy, Clint, but he somehow still makes flushed and giggling work for him, his hair all tousled and his tie off-center. 

Bucky pulls him in a little tighter, his hands resting on Clint’s lower back, leans his jaw against Clint’s temple and breathes him in. 

It’s like the whole room has caught the same contentment. Past Clint, Bucky can see Sharon awkwardly talking Steve through some slow dancing, the punk, ‘cos he may not have much real life experience but he’d sure practiced enough with Bucky. Bruce and Natasha are sitting at a table at the side of the room, watching the dancing; not much more’n their pinkies are touching, but it’s still a little hard to look at the brightness of happiness on Natasha’s face. Wanda and Vision don’t seem to have noticed that their gentle rotating is taking place a few inches off the floor, and Tony’s in some kinda weird shuffling threeway with Pepper and Rhodes, lookin’ like he’s just about in heaven. 

Right in the middle of it all is the man of the moment. Sam’s - there’s no better word for it than awestruck, not really, like he’s lookin’ at something he can’t quite believe. Like Claire’s some kinda angel, some kinda perfection, instead of a grumpy medical sadist who refuses to be charmed by Bucky’s best smiles. 

Bucky runs his hand up Clint’s spine, cradles the back of his neck. Breathes it all in. And then he dips Clint, ‘cos Clint is the most graceful klutz he’s ever met, and pulls him back up into a kiss that’s more than a promise, that’s just inches - weeks, days - away from a proposal. 


	30. Chapter 30

“Asshole, asshole, asshole, asshole,” Clint chanted all the way over to the heater on the wall, flicking it on and immediately shoving his hand back into his armpit where the faintest lingering bed-warmth still stubbornly persisted. When the first gentle breaths of warmth hit his thighs he turned so he could properly toast his ass, scowling across at the bed where Bucky was laughing at him. 

“Did I,” Bucky eventually managed, and Clint’s scowl intensified. 

“Bartons do not -”

“- or did I not -”

“- wear anything other than -”

“- tell you to get some -”

“- boxers to bed, Barnes, and never -”

“ _flannel pajamas_ ,” they finished, together, and then Bucky just  _creased_. Clint wasn’t actually convinced that anyone else got to see this, got to hear Bucky’s stupid high-pitched giggles that devolved into snorting, helpless and ridiculous. It lacked the gravitas that the Winter Soldier had in spades, and it was Clint’s secret ambition to get him giggling like this in the leather, sometime, if only for the look on Tony’s face. 

“You know this is the 21st century now, right?” Clint asked, rhetorically. “I mean, central goddamn heating is a thing we have, now.” 

“I’m not shelling out for that kinda luxury just because you’re too proud to nut up and get yourself some -”

“You look like an idiot,” Clint cut in, helpfully. “I didn’t wanna say it, I figured I’d be polite, but you look -”  _warm_ , his brain finished for him. Bucky was all wrapped up in fuzzy red plaid, and Clint gave a resigned sigh and hopped back across the frigid floor so he could wrap himself around the man, cephalopod-sucking his heat. 

“Warmmm,” Bucky hummed into his ear, and Clint choked a laugh out into the skin of his throat, figuring since he was there anyway he might as well add a couple of kisses, a few that it looked like Bucky’s skin was missing. 


	31. Chapter 31

The archer tumbles through the door after him, hooting and cackling, exhilarated by the rushing water and the screaming wind, letting in rain and swirling leaves and the angry roar of thunder on his heels. The Asset braces against the wind’s relentless advance and manages to force the door shut, locking it tight with steel and wood and considering for a moment before heaving the heavy oak table in front of it, too. 

“I don’t think they followed us,” the archer says, amused, and the Asset allows that to be his reasoning, allows that to be believed. 

The cabin is not prepared for their arrival. The cabin was always a solution of last resort, and its use was assumed to be for the Asset alone; he should have killed the archer five failed plans ago, and he tells himself he regrets not doing so when the man starts to shiver, hugging himself, his impractically exposed limbs. He tells himself this even as he takes hold of the back of one of the chairs, kicks it until it splinters and falls apart, even as he fumbles in the archer’s pockets for the life-preserving precautions the Asset has never been given. 

“Getting a little f-friendly there,” he protests, and the Asset considers this a moment. 

“No,” he says. 

He stacks the broken chair - what will fit of it - into the stove, holding a match to the wood and watch it lick at varnish with an eager yellow flame that falters and flickers before it’s done more than warm. He tries another, with the same result, and then the archer swears and stumbles over the fricative again. 

“Like this,” he says. 

He assembles a peaked tent out of balled drawer liners and skittering small pieces of chair, his trembling hands knocking it over once, twice, three times and again. When he’s done he gives a gesture - like he’s proud, like he’s not waving the Asset forward because his numbing fingers wouldn’t hold onto a match - and the small pile of kindling catches quickly and burns for long enough to bubble away varnish and snatch at wood. 

The Asset has always seen fire as a tool. The archer regards it like a friend, hauling himself close and burning himself red enough that the Asset pulls him away and ignores all his whining. 

He had whined on the mission, too. He had whined and chattered and prattled and joked, and he had twitched and fallen and stumbled, and then he had stilled and breathed and executed the sort of perfect shot that shouldn’t be possible, that  _couldn’t_ , that had made the Asset’s breath catch and stutter like cold, like a foundation-rocking storm. 

He is edging closer to the fire again and protect was not the parameters of this mission but the Asset somehow gave up on the mission five failed plans ago. He hauls the archer backwards again, but this time he pulls him back against his chest, back against the heat that is higher than a human’s should be. He tugs the archer in close and tight, shelters him in his arms from the storm and whatever waits beyond it. 


	32. Chapter 32

“So you ever have that thing,” Clint asks, and that never goes anywhere good ‘cos no, Clint, bruises aren’t supposed to go that colour, and no, Clint, fingers aren’t supposed to bend that way and no, Clint, no one else has that thing - “where you come so hard that it feels like you kinda blew something in your brain?”

Bucky chokes on his coffee. He’s pretty sure he manages to keep it silent, though, and short enough that Clint is still patiently waiting for a response when he’s through.

“*No*, Clint,” he hisses into the phone, sinking down in his seat a little like anyone looking at him’ll just *know* what he’s talking about.

“Nah,” Clint says, “me neither,” and he laughs a little awkward and quickly done. He clears his throat.

“So remind me why you can’t show today?” Bucky asks.

“I,” Clint says, pulling the last tatters of dignity around him like a dish towel cape, “have a headache.”

*

Bucky kinda keeps thinking about it. He’s been pretty satisfied with his hand, since coming back to himself; warm skin for the everyday and cool metal for festivals and holidays. He’s never really seen the appeal in toys, in fancy accessories and the like. He gets how partners make it greater, but mostly it’s just always seemed more about… meeting a need.

But he’s curious, okay. He’s aching to know what the hell kinda jack-off technique Clint’s got for himself that almost gives him an aneurysm. He wants to know what kinda kinky shit he’s got in his closet, or under his bed, wants to observe - for science! - what the hell kinda games he plays.

Wants (maybe, fuck, what the hell is he thinking) to play along.

And when Clint next pinches the bridge of his nose, rubbing gingerly at his temples, Bucky is achingly, stupidly, painfully hard in seconds.

“Headache?” He asks, and Clint nods fractionally. Bucky swallows. “Worth it?” He asks, a little lower, a little closer.

Clint makes a little questioning noise and Bucky smiles slow.

“I think it would be,” he says, and it’s like Clint all of a sudden remembers the phone call, his cheeks all of a sudden flushing bright red. “I think,” Bucky says, nothing like deterred, “I’d like you to try to blow my mind.”


	33. Chapter 33

“Oh fuck,” Clint breathed when Bucky opened his eyes, “oh thank fuck, you’re okay.”

Bucky was gonna reserve judgement on that, for a minute or two, but on balance he felt way more than okay - a little light headed, maybe, but aside from that -

“Don’t _do_  that to me.” His voice was a strangled yell, and the shaking hand he’d just run through his hair curled into a loose fist and socked Bucky’s upper arm, gentle as anything. “Holy shit, I thought you’d died.”

“’m okay,” Bucky managed, pushing himself a little higher in bed, but Clint wasn’t really listening.

“I thought I’d killed you,” Clint said, “I thought you were dead of sex! Do you have _any idea_ what Cap’d do to me if you were dead of sex?”

A comment about ego was all lined up on Bucky’s tongue, ready to go, but the warm lassitude in all of his muscles was kinda making him think… well, credit where credit was due.

“I don’t wanna be dead of sex,” Clint said, a little mournful. And then, his voice oddly intent, “and I never want you to die, okay? Even for sex.”

“Wow,” Bucky croaked, and jeez, he musta been louder than he’d thought. “Romantic.”

“That’s me,” Clint said, his shoulders hunching, “Mr Romantic. I’ll never remember an anniversary but I sure as hell can fuck you unconscious.” His voice was low and pained and kinda self-deprecating, and Bucky curled a hand around the nape of his neck and ducked his head, made sure he had eye contact before he responded.

“Clint,” he said, low and firm, “baby.”

“Yeah?” He said, apologetic.

“ _Do it again._ ”


	34. Chapter 34

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Demon Bucky AU

“That guy was an asshole.” 

“You have no idea,” Clint said, as angry footsteps faded into the distance. “Apparently I have a type.” He blotted at his lip with the back of his hand, wound up wiping the blood on his shirt anyway. 

The man who’d spoken was leaning against the door Clint’d just hauled his date out through, and he looked like six feet of trouble and bad attitude wrapped in scowls and black leather. Smoke curled out of his mouth and into the darkness, shivering neon and the glowing cherry on his cigarette the only pretense at light. 

“First date?” The guy offered his packet of cigarettes, and Clint waved it away with thanks. 

“Third,” Clint said, and the guy choked on a laugh. Clint smiled, stupid and embarrassed. “He wasn’t that bad on the previous two.” 

“Third date’s always the - shit, the science test thing, what’s the science thing?” 

“Not a science guy,” Clint said with a shrug, and the guy’s smile curled into something a little more intimate. 

“So what kinda guy are you…?” he left a gap, right there, for Clint’s name to fit in; introduced himself as Bucky in return. 

“Couldn’t say,” he answered, after thinking a second. “The kinda guy that doesn’t automatically expect sex on the third date, I guess. The kinda guy who takes no for an answer and doesn’t show up freakin’  _armed_.” 

“Well he’ll get what’s comin’ to him eventually,” Bucky said, with a weird sort of assurance in his voice, a weird sort of dark glee in his smile. 

“Hope so,” Clint said, rueful. “I guess I’m a little less in shape than I thought.” 

“And the gun didn’t give you second thoughts about taking him on?” Bucky considered Clint for a moment by the light of his flicked zippo, then touched the flame to the end of another cigarette. “You didn’t think,” he said, on a dragon’s breath, “of just leaving quietly, maybe?” 

“And, what, let him keep doing what he was doing?” 

“Other people would,” Bucky said, thoughtful. 

“Over my dead body.” 

Bucky nudged at something that lay huddled at his feet, and Clint stared down with an increasing sense of dislocation at spreading blood, at blond hair, at his favorite goddamn shirt lying in amongst the trash of the alley. 

“Hate to break it to ya,” Bucky said. 

“Wow,” Clint said, or the shape of Clint said, or the shape of something that used to be Clint. “You’re kind of an asshole, huh?” 

Bucky smiled, lopsided and charming and entirely incongruous, looking like the kinda guy you’d be happy to bring home to your ma, provided your ma didn’t know nice from right. 

“I hear that’s your type,” he said. 


	35. Chapter 35

“What’s the meaning of life, the universe and everything?” Tony asks, a little meanly in Bucky’s opinion, ‘cos Clint’s taken a beating in this drinking game and while his answers have been getting increasingly hilarious, he also seems to be having trouble remaining vertical.

Clint stares down into his cup, thoughtfully. Bucky’s a little afraid that he’s gonna try drinking out of it again, and has legitimate concerns that there’s a point the human liver just gives in and explodes. He reaches out and snags the rim of Clint’s cup, hooking two fingers inside it and tugging it downwards, and Clint squints at him for a second before his mouth spreads into a goofy looking grin that’s made entirely of sunshine. 

“Bucky,” he says, low and slow and languid, and Bucky laughs. 

“Yeah, that’s me,” he says, and Clint looks at Tony. 

“ _Bucky_ ,” he says, with a little more conviction, and Tony raises an eyebrow. 

“Bucky is the meaning of life?” 

“Yup,” Clint says. “Alla the important bits.” He waves a hand and huffs out an alcohol soaked breath, his eyes sliding closed for a second. “Why’s the sun come up? Bucky. Why do - why is the - the world goin’ round? Bucky.”

“This is  _gold_ ,” Sam says, somewhere in the distant world that apparently still exists beyond the ringing in Bucky’s ears, and he’s glad Sam’s an asshole, glad he’s gonna get to watch this again, get to convince himself it really happened. 

“What’re we fightin’ for?” Clint asks, rhetorically, smiling to himself like the world’s spinnin’ him just right. “Bucky.” 

It’s too much, it’s - he can’t - Bucky lunges forward and cups Clint’s jaw in his palm, tilting the guy’s head up, stroking his thumb against Clint’s cheek and ducking until he can get eye contact, take a stab at maintaining it. 

“I love you, Clint,” he says, almost angry with it. “Okay? I love you, asshole,” and Clint snuggles into his palm like he’s gonna fall asleep there, kisses the heel of Bucky’s hand. 

“Not gonna ‘member,” he says, happy and tired and smiling like he’s simple, and Bucky kisses him on his eyelids, the fragilest place he’s got. 

“It’s okay,” he says, and he’s sure Sam’s still recording, just like he’s sure they’re gonna play it someday at his wedding to this drunken idiot, the sweetest guy he knows. “I promise I’ll tell you again.” 


	36. Chapter 36

Bucky curled tighter, tail curled firmly over his nose so all he could smell was explosions and smoke and only the faintest trace of all the blood. His ears were still ringing and he’d never thought that’d be a relief, that he’d be thankful that he couldn’t catch the distant drumming of anyone’s heart, but then he’d never dared to think about what’d happen if one of those beats were to stop.

His nose he’d dealt with, but he could still taste blood on his teeth.

Something cut through the ringing. A howl, high and uncertain and unfamiliar, and Bucky flinched out of his defensive coil just in time to see the stumbling, half-falling jumble of limbs and fur and *tail* oh thank fuck, thank -

Clint hit the bottom of the stairs and lost control of the shift, stumbling forward and crashing into Bucky’s side and laughing like he was drunk on it. He buried his face in the fur on Bucky’s flank and didn’t flinch away when it shifted, replaced by the warm skin of Bucky’s hip and fingers curled tightly enough to hurt into his hair.


	37. Chapter 37

“Hey, Barton,” Bucky says, all low and friendly-like. There’s no other noise except for the gentle patter of the shower in the next room, ‘cos they’ve all got their own showers but those without long-range weapons had got covered in this viscous off-white goop when the giant space chicken had exploded. 

He and Clint, though, they were fine, save for the toes of Bucky’s boots where he hadn’t skipped away fast enough from Sam’s goop-attack. So there was nothing stopping him from easing in close, resting a hand on Clint’s hip, leaning against the guy’s locker. Clint immediately fumbled what he was doing, neck flushing red as he failed at unsnapping his vest, and Bucky smiled slow. 

“Want a hand with that?” 

Clint let out a huff of breath through his nose and tilted his head back like he was praying for strength; Bucky took the opportunity to lean in until they were almost touching, his nose almost running along the line of Clint’s jaw. The tiny, involuntary noise Clint let out, the tiny, involuntary movement closer set Bucky’s mouth to watering. Fuck. He was gonna  _\- fuck…_

“I give,” Clint breathed out, and Bucky collapsed forward against him, forehead in the crook of his neck as he reeled him in, pressed impossibly closer. “Fuck, you win, get your face on my face you -”

Bucky cut him off, cradling his face and pressing their mouths together in a kiss that started hot and heavy and kept getting better. Clint rolled them a little so Bucky was pushing him back against cold metal, his posture all submission but the unrelenting roll of his hips taking control of everything Bucky was. 

He pulled away, gasping for breath, and zeroed in on the crook of Clint’s neck, where he’d had to watch the marks fade for a  _week_ , now. Clint arched into him, pulling him closer and tugging a little on his hair. 

“Let’s not fight again,” he said, breathless, “you can be right, that’s fine, I don’t give a -  _fuck!”_

It’d last as long it took for them to get pizza, run outta poptarts, turn on the goddamn television, ‘cos Clint was a contrary bastard and Bucky was stubborn as a mule. But right now Clint was all compliance, and Bucky was completely at his mercy. 


	38. Chapter 38

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning for poor poetry XD

Clint was carrying the world on his back;  
sometimes the morning light hit him like that.   
He showered, he half way remembered to eat,   
Wouldn’t wake up but still couldn’t sleep.   
(Most of all, he felt weak.)

Clint donned a mask - they called and he fought   
(Indifferent to harm, but you couldn’t say  _sought_ ,  
Pursued, maybe, willingly went where it led,  
For the sleep was more certain in infirmary beds  
And his bones felt like lead.)

Clint returned home, less bleeding than bruised,  
Sought solace in sleep, but rest was refused.  
Decided the light rap of knuckles on door   
Was someone paying visits to the wrong freaking floor,   
And thought nothing more,

So the breaking glass came as a nasty surprise.   
As, he supposed, did the arrow let fly  
That was met with quick reflexes, swearing, a stare  
Steel blue eyes from behind a fall of dark hair,  
Metal arm and sun glare.

“Don’t ever do that again,” he was told  
And the arms were folded, the voice was cold  
But his mouth was warm and alive when they kissed;  
indifference to harm never meant a death wish  
When his day led to this.


	39. Chapter 39

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A lost snippet of the mob boss AU

“So,” Clint pants into Bucky’s open mouth, finally getting around to shrugging his shirt off his shoulders and then bringing his hands back around so he can bury them in Bucky’s hair. “So this business of yours - I’m assuming I can drop quotation marks right on in there?” 

“Clint -” Bucky breathes, and when Clint won’t let him lift his head for a kiss he darts his tongue out instead, runs it along Clint’s bottom lip. Clint can’t help but chase it, and then they’re kissing again, those gorgeously deep earth-shattering kisses that are something entirely new, something  _dangerous_. 

“Fuck,” Clint moans after a second. “Fuck, this is gonna get me killed, isn’t it?” 

Bucky - there is seriously no other word for it -  _growls_ , and he grabs Clint under his thighs, lifts and twists and bends the world to his will until Clint’s sprawled on his back on the couch, laughing a little breathlessly when Bucky lands over him, hands braced either side of his head. 

“No chance,” Bucky says, his eyes skipping over Clint’s face like he’s trying to memorise everything about him. He pushes down for another lush kiss that’s slower and somehow more careful, and it leaves Clint breathless in a different way entirely. “I’m keeping you, Clint Barton,” Bucky says when he finally pulls away. 


	40. Chapter 40

“You were there,” James said, his helm still tucked under his arm, the heavy armour almost unbearable against his bruised skin.

The smith didn’t pause, beating steadily at someone’s dented armour for a moment more before he started poking at it, bending it, assessing its new weaknesses.

“I saw you,” he insisted. “You were there. You saved my life.”

Close enough that the fletching had nearly brushed against his cheek, diverted the blow that he had already braced for, resigned himself to.

The smith looked up at that, and he was a man unused to the subtlety of life at court - he looked surprised at the expression on James’ face, and his eyes fell to the bow in the corner without even thinking to dissemble.

“No need to th-” he began, but James’ temper blood was up and he cut him off.

“Did I ask for this punishment?” He hissed, voice low but perfectly audible in the quiet of the forge.

The smith blinked at him, cow eyed and startled. He was older than James, care-worn, but his incredulity made him look like the greenest page.

“What,” James forced the words out, “made you want to -”

“Didn’t want,” the smith said, “had. You get that.” He hitched a half smile, blue eyes bright in his soot-stained face. “Still good in you,” he said, and the way he said it meant he knew of the tales, he’d heard of winter’s knight.

“No.” Flat. Uncompromising.

“Still good to be done, then,” and he shrugged, like choices were things that happened to others. “It’s the same thing.”


	41. Chapter 41

After a long, involved, invective-filled, multi-level battle, in which Clint had climbed seven trees and Bucky had distracted with filthy kisses on two separate occasions - after all that, Clint eventually was declared the winner, purely thanks to his ability to fire through a campfire and have his marshmallows arrive, perfectly toasted, in his antagonist’s mouth. 


	42. Chapter 42

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NSFW

“Aaw, Bucky, no,” Clint said, and tried to wrestle the pillow off him, eventually managing to thwart his efforts to drown himself in feathers by straddling his belly and putting his biceps to good use. Of course, then he had to contend with the arm Bucky had flung over his face - flesh and blood, his metal hand was curled into the sheets at his side - but that one was a little easier to get around.

“Hey,” Clint said, soft and gentle as the sunlight that was making its slow way across the bed. He started carefully easing strands of hair out from under Bucky’s arm, teasing them out and brushing them back into place to clear his forehead for a kiss. He eased himself down after he was done with that, laying himself on top of Bucky and pressing gentle kisses against his morning-harsh stubble. “Hey, sweetheart,” he said.

Bucky huffed a protest into the skin of his arm, but he didn’t resist more when Clint nudged it upward with his nose so he could ease in around the edges of it, get his mouth on Bucky’s mouth, off centre and a little clumsy and the best possible way to start the day.

“Sorry,” Bucky eventually croaked, his mouth easing down a little at the edges in the perfect inverse reflection of Clint’s. “It’s been - ”

“A long time, I get it,” Clint said. He was still hard, still working at not rocking against Bucky’s thigh, but that really wasn’t any sort of a problem. “I don’t need anything outside of this.”

Bucky scowled up at him, but it couldn’t hold out long against whatever stupid smile Clint could feel he was wearing. Bucky surged up, pushed into Clint’s kisses, dove past gentle and sunk in deeper. Clint only managed to keep his hips still with an effort, made harder - heh - still when Bucky’s cold hand ran over his ass.

Bucky drew up one leg between Clint’s, and he couldn’t bite back his groan quite in time, rocking into it in a stuttering moment’s movement that had Bucky hissing at the uncomfortable damp, but he wouldn’t let Clint pull away.

“Let me decide my own comfort zone,” he said, snippy, and then - curling upward, abs fucking beautiful in sharp relief, warm breath against Clint’s ear - “let me see you come.”


	43. Chapter 43

Pizza tastes best cold, a little rubbery, between 3 and 5 am. Clint’s done the research, okay, he knows.

That sounds kinda facetious, but it’s more true than looking at him’d have you believe; his food blog is all kinds of successful, racking up the awards, paying for his apartment building and the endless medical bills for his dumb dog. He’s the kind of guy who’s invited to restaurant openings, now, shambling up in a purple Henley and worn jeans, grinning lopsided and embarrassed at the press. Somehow, he’s ended up friends with Tony Stark, who couldn’t stop laughing when Clint’d compared some up-and-comer’s escargot to ‘bronchitis backwash’ and kept inviting him over to insult craft beers.

So pizza maybe isn’t exactly what he’s known for, but pizza’s what he knows best. Cold, rubbery, 3-5am and, inconveniently, a 24 hour cooling off period for optimal rubberisation.

Now night pizza, it ain’t exactly a culinary wonderland. Tends to the dregs and the good-enough-for-drunks, poorly presented and with a focus on the smell. Clint has been lured by skilful wafting too many times to be anything other than wary when he walks past the new place on 9th, takes in a lungful of basil and garlic and cooked meat and melted cheese.

It’s the pizza sweet spot, 3.45 with the night shaking out its feathers and settling in all warm and close, clouds holding in the last of the fall’s remaining heat. The air in his apartment had felt a little too thick for breathing, but out here it’s fine and beautifully fragrant, and he’s heading through the door before he even takes note of the name.

There’s a note taped to the counter - 'display cases are for assholes, good food is worth the wait’. Clint’s, frankly, a little in love, even before the beer-cap bead curtain clatters and the most beautiful man to ever scowl like he wants to kill him steps through.


	44. Chapter 44

Mr Barton tapped at the walls, maybe a little unreasonably disappointed that the hollow space had once been a chimney, not a secret passage.

“We can check on the roof,” his partner said consolingly, “if it’s wide enough it still could be.”

The realtor - Jade, 26, who really wasn’t paid enough for this - laughed nervously and gestured at another door.

“The basement is currently unfinished,” she said, “although of course it’d be lovely when developed - maybe a gym?” She said, in appreciation of the pair’s collective biceps, “or,” she was inclusive, she’d taken classes, “perhaps a playroom for kids someday?”

Mr Barnes barked out a laugh. Mr Barton didn’t. Jade pushed up the intensity of her smile a little and headed for the kitchen.

“And of course,” she said, ignoring the hushed snippets of ’ - don’t you want -?’ And ‘I hadn’t thought about - ’ as she listed features and measurements and and adjectives galore.

“We could always leave the basement as is until we decide,” Barnes said, quirking a hopeful smile at Barton. “I’m sure we can find ways to put the space to use.”

“Is it soundproof?” Barton asked, thoughtful, and Jade wondered whether, on return to the office, she should maybe call the police…


	45. Chapter 45

Bucky just falls face first onto the couch when they get home, like all the overlapping voices, the demanding questions, they’ve just fritzed his brain out. Clint wrestles his boots off him and tosses them towards the door, then ponders what’s on offer in the refrigerator for a while. There’s varying levels of prepared and appealing; after some consideration he peels and plates a banana, sets a box of cereal, bowl, spoon and milk carton on the coffee table and brushes the hair out of Bucky’s face so he can be sure he’s seen it. Then he whistles for Lucky, locks the door behind them, heads out into the cold.

The bowl’s in the sink when he gets back, which was more than he expected. He puts the cereal back on the counter next to the second hand recipe books Steve bought them, and takes a swig of the milk before putting it away. The refrigerator light kinda startles him, ‘cos evening’s crept into the flat without him noticing. He could supplement it with the ghostly blue TV glare, but if he’s only got a little energy left he’s gonna spend it hauling off his clothes, shuffling himself through a shower before bed.

He doesn’t think about much. He’d sing, but he’s forgotten the words to almost everything he knows, sunk deep in the cotton balls that are all that’s left in his head. Post-press latitude, longitude - lassitude? Lost somewhere far off and sea-surrounded, anyway, his consciousness barely bobbing and ready to sink.

The lights ain’t on in the bedroom, but Clint’s lived here long enough to guide himself by the blind-edge streetlight-orange, the barest hints of edges of things. Home is where the half-light is, familiar even faded out, and it’s no trouble at all to tumble into the duvet’s drift and press a half-kiss against half-hidden skin.


	46. Chapter 46

Clint stares at the closed door for a second, feeling a little sick with how fast everything inside him is sinking, a stomach full of exhausted butterflies and a heart that feels like a lead weight. He’s screwed it up, and it was inevitable that he’d screw it up, but he figured he’d have a little longer before - 

The door handle turns and the door creaks open again. Bucky’s scowl’s eased a little now, and he closes the door carefully, gently behind him, and leans against it with his arms folded across his chest. 

“I’m gonna give you a freebie, here,” he says, “‘cos it’s turning out you’re kinda dumb.” 

A couple of the butterflies somehow find themselves a second wind, tickling at his ribs, and Clint finds himself inching closer and gnawing on his lip. 

“This?” Bucky says, gesturing between them, his face easing up so that a smirk can settle in there, “this ain’t friends, Clint.” 

“Oh.” 

Bucky rolls his eyes, mutters  _dumb_  again, resigned but something happier tangled all around it, and then he steps forward decisively and curls his hand around the back of Clint’s neck. 

Clint’s makes some kinda sound, a little wretched, a little desperate, but the humiliation of it is swallowed up by Bucky’s mouth against his, how gentle he is. Clint tilts his head immediately, ‘cos kissing he’s got down, kissing he knows, only he’s never quite known kissing like this; Bucky takes his time with him, easing their mouths across each other, resting his against Clint’s cheekbone for a moment or two before returning, carefully teasing Clint’s mouth open with his lips. 

“I never know where I stand with you, Barton,” Bucky murmurs, moving away just far enough to see him clearly, eyes scanning across Clint’s face like he’ll never get tired of looking. 

Clint shrugs. It’s not like he knows either. 

“Chaos theory,” he says, a little nonsensically, leaning back in. “Butterflies,” ‘cos they’re fluttering again, setting him to smiling helplessly against Bucky’s mouth. 

 

 


	47. Chapter 47

The first time Tony Stark is in a room with Steve Rogers he takes a deep and happy breath, flings himself into the guy’s arms and declares he smells like  _justice_. 

Most people wouldn’t really be down with that particular way of meeting their soulmate, but most people wouldn’t be mated to Tony Stark - Steve doesn’t even break his stride. 

And Clint is happy for them - he is absolutely and categorically and without reservation  _happy_  for them - but the little part of him that had been excited to meet Tony Stark, to smell whatever combination he had of grease and gunpowder and  _metal_ , that part of him curled up into a tiny ball. 

It’s not like you know your soulmate’s scent, not before you meet them. But you know what you like, and Clint’s always been drawn to mechanics, engineering, robotics. First time he let someone fuck him it’d been on an ill-fated road-trip, broken down on the side of an empty road, bent forward and trying not to his his head on the open hood. 

So he’d figured Tony might be a possibility, and it wasn’t like he was exactly  _disappointed_  that he wasn’t, but… whatever. It gets lonely sometimes, is all. 

Of course, then Steve finds his best buddy again, and suddenly Clint is dealing with an overdose of Tony, the guy curled up on his couch all hours of the day and night, eating reheated Chinese with beautiful and expensive lacquered chopsticks. 

“It’s not that I don’t  _like_  pizza,” he’s saying, when Clint vaguely tunes in, “it’s just not something I can eat for every damned meal and I swear to god Barnes is  _obsessed_.”

“Take him to Iggy’s,” Clint tells him. “Best in the damned city.” 

“We went there,” Tony says. “He said that too.” 

Clint shrugs - so much for being helpful - and takes Lucky out for a walk, telling Tony to lock up behind himself. While he’s out his phone starts ringing, loud and obnoxious and Miss American Pie, and he seriously has to choose his passcodes better when Tony’s around. 

“Hey Steve,” he says, his breath forming clouds in the air. “Tony’s on his way home.” 

“Oh, thanks,” Steve says, and then Clint misses a few words, ‘cos Lucky gets excited about a garbage can. There are reasons that he is perfectly suited to be Clint’s dog. 

“- therapy dog,” Steve is saying, once Clint’s untangled. “Buck seems pretty keen on the idea, or on dogs at least, and I thought you might know -” 

“I got my dog when it saved me from getting shot,” Clint says. “It’s not exactly the recommended route.” 

“No,” Steve says, with a warm little chuckle, “I guess not.” 

“But hey, in the meantime, he can always come help me walk my mutt,” Clint tells him, and Steve runs with the idea, organises a time that seems just ungodly early to Clint. But Steve’s  _Steve_ , so of course Clint is waiting there in the morning, hands wrapped around coffee and leash wrapped around his hand, cursing every aspect of his friendship with Steve on every misty breath. 

“Clint?” A voice says, uncertain, and Clint looks up, jerks his face out of his scarf, and is hit by a wave of scent - metal and a little grease, gunpowder and simmering anger - and his mouth drops open. 

“Holy shit you smell like car sex,” he says, and then flushes crimson from his scarf right up to the purple beanie pulled low on his forehead. 


	48. Chapter 48

Bucky plants one right on his cheek, a little whiskery, a little wet, and Clint feels kinda like an idiot because he wasn’t expecting it to tangle up around his belly like that, the prickle of Bucky’s stubble shivering down the whole length of his spine.

The picture that gets Twittered of that moment, he looks about seven kinds of gobsmacked, and it swiftly becomes one of those meme things. The most popular version has his startled face and ‘woah, bro, no homo’ in clumsy yellow letters.

Tony looks at him kinda sidelong when he asks for the password for the official Avengers account, which - well it’s Clint, so that’s probably fair. His version of the meme is fairly crappy - 'much kiss. very homo. wow’ - but it’s on the official account so he figures it counts for something.

Honestly he wasn’t expecting reactions to include deconstruction of doge grammar, but it’s better than some of the other replies they get. He makes certain to send flowers and chocolate down to the people in the PR department, 'cos even the little eddies of activity he sees suck all sorts of ass.

They get a couple questions at press conferences, carefully vetted, it’s no big deal. Fox News screams about it some, but Clint’s got no patience for anyone who watches that anyway.

So end of the next mission, when Bucky slings an arm around his shoulders again, he resigns himself to being teased like this until the end of time.

Bucky tugging him in, curling an arm around the back of his neck so he can tilt Clint’s face into it, the beautiful pressure of lips against lips and the barest hint of open mouth - all that, Clint could cope with them capturing on camera, if only someone didn’t gif his knees giving way right after.


	49. Chapter 49

“What,” Tony said, flat and emotionless; it was far too early for intonation.

Bucky grinned at him, waved him towards a seat with a wooden spoon, and did something suspiciously shimmy-like with his hips as he stirred the scrambled eggs.

//help// he texted Steve, under cover of the table.

This was not a Bucky Barnes he had ever seen before, okay, he was allowed to be unnerved by the flourish with which he was chopping mushrooms, by the grin that was quirking the side of his mouth.

Clint was sitting at the kitchen table, head on one arm, to all appearances actually sleeping; Tony admired his fortitude ‘cos he himself was terrified.

“Good sleep?” He managed after a moment of coughing, throat clearing, grinding gears.

Bucky turned around and _beamed_ at him, and Tony flinched hard enough that his chair scraped a little across the floor. It was loud enough that Clint jerked upright, bed hair spectacular and arm-pillow creases possibly permanent.

“What?” He asked, then turned as Steve rushed into the room, screeching to a halt in the doorway.

“What’s happening, Tony, are you - ” his double take - at the best friend who now appeared to be dancing - was a thing of beauty. “Holy hell, Bucky, you had _sex_!”

And that would absolutely be the revelation of the day, only Tony was a little distracted by the completely unsubtle hickey that decorated the side of Clint’s neck.


	50. Chapter 50

Clint is sitting on the couch, minding his own business - watching David Attenborough, actually, ‘cos he thinks puffins are all kinds of cute - when suddenly Bucky Barnes, the winter soldier, legendary assassin, is astride his lap. 

He’s grinning, too. It’s a grin that has had Clint melting for freakin’ weeks, now. It’s a grin that has got under his skin to the extent that it’s all he needs to picture to get himself off, and the reaction, it is Pavlovian. 

“Hey,” he says, a little high pitched maybe, but he figures it’s probably lost in the noise of the seabirds. “Hey Bucky.” 

Bucky touches him. And it’s not his hand, either, it’s his  _hand_ , cold and gentle and placed just exactly placed along the line of his jaw. Clint swallows, hard, and returns Bucky’s tentative smile, and apparently that’s enough to have him leaning in, pressing his mouth to Clint’s and pushing further just as soon as Clint eases up, softens just a little. Bucky slicks his tongue across Clint’s lower lip, and Clint’s a little embarrassed by the noise that he makes but he’s just. He’s  _wanted_. 

“What?” he says, and “Bucky,” he moans, and he pants all kindsa fricatives, hitching and heated and helpless, and Bucky just - he has to pull away, he’s smilin’ so hard, and he rests his forehead against Clint’s so he can maybe get himself a little under control. 

“I’ve been wanting to do that for -” he says, and then presses a kiss against Clint’s lips, little sips, like he needs it to catch his breath, like he needs him like air. “For the longest damn time, I can’t tell you. Shit.”

“You coulda,” Clint says, ‘cos his vocabulary right now is barely polysyllabic, “you shoulda.” 

“Tony just,” Bucky says, passes his lips across Clint’s cheekbone, “just finished calibrations, just confirmed -” another kiss, another moment lost, another smile Clint can call on on cold and crappy days - “that I can’t, I won’t hurt you, nothing’s gonna spasm and break.” 

“You waited?” Clint says, and he’s maybe a little awestruck, ‘cos it suggests pre-planning, and it suggests maybe that Bucky’s in this for more than five minutes, a shower, a spank for Clint’s bank. 

“It’d kill me to hurt you,” Bucky says, and Clint doesn’t know what he’s feelin’ but he knows that it’s good. 


	51. Chapter 51

Bucky finds Clint spread-eagled on the roof. He’s taken the time to get all bundled up: padded coat, beanie, mittens that might actually be on strings, which has Kate written all over it. His scarf is pulled down away from his face so that every breath turns him into a dragon.

“Hey,” Bucky says. “You okay down there?”

“Long day,” Clint says, his cloud of breath far larger than such scanty words  support. “I’m making snow angels.”

“Yeah?” Bucky settles himself cross-legged next to him, finds a small patch of skin just in front of Clint’s ear to gently run his cold fingers across. “And the fact that it ain’t snowing, that’s just fine with you?”

“Long week,” Clint says, staring up at the grey cloud-light of midday, looking somehow unreal in it. Softly studio-lit and ready to deliver screenwriter speeches. “Gonna wait here for it,” he says, instead, and honestly the tired that’s taken up residence just under his eyes is just about breaking Bucky’s heart.

So he doesn’t say  _it ain’t your fault_ , ‘cos that sure as hell won’t get listened to, and he doesn’t say  _we’ve all of  us failed_ , ‘cos he knows those aren’t words that Clint will want to hear.

“Okay,” he says instead, laying a warm kiss on the skin his fingers have been cooling and then sprawling out against him, one arm curled firm across Clint’s chest. “I’ll be right here.”


	52. Chapter 52

4b is gonna kill Clint, he’s pretty sure.

At first he thought it was gonna be the murder stares, the occasional yelling, the leather and anger and kickass prosthetic. Now… the leather still features heavily, okay, but one time he saw 4b shirtless and that’s going on his epitaph.

And he was *handling* it when it was one time. When it was one time, he was *fine*. Only then 4b’s shower broke, mid-rinse, and Clint just - he - 4b has the kind of body that selfies wouldn’t do justice to. You’d need marble, a chisel, an excuse to stare at him for goddamn years. He’s beautiful, there’s no other word for it, and Clint has a track record with beautiful that’s doing him no favours, so he figures it’s best to avoid. Avoid and retreat, only apparently 4b’s under some kinda curse.

It’s a leaking tap and sweatpants and unhelpful commentary about Clint’s ass. It’s locked out in his boxers and a cross-legged lean against the door frame that should be goddamn illegal. It’s a defrosting freezer that had him yanking off his shirt to mop up the puddle, and Clint is not allowed to creep on the tenants and 4b is gonna *kill* him.

Clint is, basically, doomed. And, swear to all that’s holy, if 4b smiles at him one more goddamn time…

There’s the sound of glass breaking as he passes 4b. The door is pulled open, and then he’s standing there, hair just brushing against his gorgeously cut jaw, smile just settling on his lips.

“Window’s busted,” he says casually, and the hammer is in his goddamn hand, and Clint cups both hands around his face and growls into his mouth as he pushes them both through the door and finally stakes his claim on 4b.


	53. Chapter 53

Bucky awakes to slow, defeated, deflating fricatives easing between Clint’s teeth. He’s still half asleep, coulda done with more, but he rolls over anyway so he can press a kiss to Clint’s side. Clint’s sitting on the edge of the bed, his back tense and a little more purple than it’s pale. Bucky hauls himself a little more upright - he’s got the blankets all tangled around his legs, and he’s always been stupidly in love with the way Clint just lets him have them - and runs a gently warm hand down the line of his spine.

“What do you need?” He asks, carefully draping himself against bruised skin, warmth but no weight, and presses a kiss to Clint’s shoulder.

“A new body?” Clint says, the slightest tangled snarl of frustration in his voice. “To be twenty years younger, maybe?”

Bucky hums thoughtfully.

“You know I’d beat up Strange for you, babe, get you the secret of eternal life, but how about we just start with a bath and go from there?”

“Gonna have to carry me,” Clint says, his voice quiet and lowering, bitter and souring. “Change me, feed me, wipe my ass…”

“And you think I’m not gonna?” Bucky asks, a little pissed. “I’m gonna grow old with you, Clint Barton, and there’s not a fuckin’ thing you can do to stop me.”

“Gimme 30 seconds and a walking stick,” Clint threatens, but Bucky can tell from his voice that he’s smiling.


	54. Chapter 54

They were always gonna end up here.

Clint hates it ‘cos he was just trying to do a good thing, with the food and the coffee and the heavy jacket that Bucky never seemed to wear. Clint hates it 'cos he’s not from this neighbourhood and he’s always exhausted and barely seeing straight when he makes his way through here, so it took him the longest time to figure out what he was even seeing.

And Clint, he’s about as subtle as a rainbow feather boa, Bucky’s smile and jawline and morally-gray eyes always tangling around his feet and tripping him over. So when he offered a motel room for the night, no surprises that Clint found himself backed up against the door, that he had to untangle himself but didn’t manage it before Bucky’s mouth looked red, and wet, and used.

“That’s not -” Clint says, a little desperately, and Bucky shrugs and drifts over to sit on the bed, and not once does he turn his back on Clint. He leans back on his elbows, and his jeans are tight and his legs are spread, and Clint wants to feed him pizza and make him laugh. And fuck him, yeah, but the other stuff first.

“They, uh,” Clint says, and clears his threat. “They have my card details, so. Um. There’s no room service but you could maybe get pizza?”

“You’re not staying,” Bucky says, flat but somehow still wary.

“Only if you wanna watch shitty movies and have me fall asleep on you,” Clint says, and Bucky shrugs one shoulder, scooting further onto the bed.

“If you promise not to pay me,” he says, and that has layers that Clint is nowhere near equipped to handle so he grabs the remote instead, looks for something with mutated sharks.


	55. Chapter 55

“Hum one more note of that carol and I’ll stab you.” 

Clint poked his head up over the counter, Santa hat cocked at a jaunty angle, holiday-themed band-aids - what the  _hell_ , Clint - adding to the festive look. 

“My house my rules, buddy,” he said, and grinned his crooked grin. “Christmas music stays on from December 1st, and if you try flicking away from the Hallmark Channel I’m EMPing your arm.” 

“EMP is not a verb,” Bucky said, flatly, and Clint hummed dubiously like they were gonna have to agree to disagree. He disappeared for another moment, then dragged a - for fuck’s  _sake_  - Christmas-pudding design trash bag over to the front door. 

“This ain’t what I signed up for,” Bucky said, and he would’ve missed the sideways look Clint shot him if he hadn’t been looking for it, braced for it, ready for his brain-voices to kick their way in. “This is gonna take some getting used to.” 

Clint vaulted over the back of the couch and planted himself right next to Bucky, maybe a little bit on top. 

“But you will, right?” he said, and grinned like he could suck all the uncertainty out of his voice, that way. Bucky slung an arm across his shoulders, shifted himself down so he was firmly settled, and squinted at the TV screen. 

“‘The Road to Christmas’,” he read, and rolled his eyes. “Might as well start somewhere, I guess.” 

“Just stick around ‘til Hallowe’en,” Clint said, half amused, half something like a threat, and the number of months until then - the possibility that Clint’d still want him around at that point - settled a grin onto Bucky’s lips. 

“Can’t wait,” he said. 


	56. Chapter 56

Gentle golden lights flash on and off in the corner of his eye, and for a second or two he thinks it’s a symptom of the concussion. Clint squints, blinks a couple times, attempts to haul himself a little more upright and then  _immediately_  regrets it. He’s gotta settle for carefully turning his head instead, taking in the baubles hanging haphazardly from the window blind, the gold foil garlands wrapped around the edges of his bed, the small and threadbare plastic tree that’s leaning drunkenly against the water jug. 

Finally his eyes rest on the chair in the corner and the former assassin who’s sprawled out in it, Santa hat tilted forward over his eyes and doing  _amazing_  things to his hair. 

There’s a snort from the doorway and he knows it’s Natasha before she speaks, partly from the particular intonation and partly because she doesn’t move to make it easier on him, just waits there like an asshole until he can flail himself around so she’s in view. 

“He did this?” Clint says, the croak of recently removed breathing tube in his voice. 

“You think I would do this?” She asks, a little scornful, and he smiles with the side of his face that doesn’t feel a little like it’s gonna fall off. 

“I didn’t think he would,” he says, and she snorts again, rolling her eyes. 

“If it helps with the cognitive dissonance,” she says, “he has also drawn a candy cane on your forehead.” 


	57. Chapter 57

“Are… you okay?” 

Bucky groaned and stretched gingerly, attempting to ascertain whether any bones were broken before he tried to walk on them. 

“Fuck,” he said, succinct and apt, and sat up, fishing around in the snowbank for the goddamn hat. 

“Seriously, man, should I be calling an ambulance?” 

The guy was hovering anxiously a few feet away, tiny tiny princess flip-flops on his feet, his arms - good arms, shit - wrapped around himself. He was wearing sweatpants and an impossibly thin shirt printed up like a translucent elf, and Bucky seriously didn’t have time for this shit. 

“You’re not supposed to see me,” he groused, and the man came closer, looking genuinely concerned. 

“Did you hit your head? Were you - putting up lights?” 

“Sure,” Bucky said, and heaved himself to his feet. “Why not. Sounds reasonable.” He attempted to dust snow off the huge red jacket he wore - he missed the leather. The leather was warmer - and pulled the dumb hat back over his ears. 

“Were you putting up lights in  _costume_?” 

“Hey,” Bucky said, and he stepped in close so he could pat the guy on the cheek. “You seem like a decent human. How about you take something outta the sack, we call it even, you never mention this again?” 

“What sack?” the guy said, and Bucky swore long, creative, and with far more use of the word ‘jingling’ than he ever woulda considered in his old life, goddammit. 

“Okay, new deal,” Bucky said. “You help me find the sack and you can take one of the reindeer.”

“The… reindeer.” 

“Sure, why not? You can have Justice, he’s always fuckin’ hated me.” 

“Maybe I should call someone for you. Is there someone who - looks out for you, maybe?”

“Steve won’t answer on Christmas Eve,” Bucky scoffed, “are you kidding? Now all the Head Elf shit is done for the year he’s gonna be drowning in eggnog.” 

“Okay now I  _know_  you’re fucking with me,” the guy said, glaring, and Bucky shrugged. 

“Quit believing in me you get underwear,” he said, and - what the hell - gave the guy his best come-hither look. 


	58. Chapter 58

It was - if you ignored the context and went purely with aesthetics - a pretty impressive move. 

Bucky was watching the snowfall (or if you were to be  _entirely_  honest, was glaring out of the window at the white shit that was falling out of the sky  _specifically_  to spite him), when something plummeted past the window. It twisted, mid-plummet, and fired something which snagged on something else which jerked the falling moron to a halt. 

Oh, hey. It was his upstairs neighbor. Suddenly all the late night clattering made a load more sense, since apparently the guy - although admittedly easy on the eyes, especially when rumpled and half asleep and getting towed past Bucky’s door by his one-eyed dog - was a fuckin’ idiot. 

Bucky hauled open his window and edged out onto the icy death trap that was his fire escape. 

“Wanna pendulum over this way?” he said. 

“Aaw,” his neighbor said, and kinda spun a little, pointedly, like he could pretend that maybe Bucky hadn’t seen him. 

“This is kinda sad to watch,” Bucky told him, matter-of-fact, spare no feelings. “I mean, I’m already feeling a little sorry for you, that you finally find time to put up lights three days before Christmas, but you’re dangling like a spider’s lunch out here.” 

“Nice simile,” his neighbor said. 

“This is what we’re prioritising?” Bucky asked, and his neighbor - having apparently lost control of his spin - gave him a quick and fleeting grin. 

“Okay,” his neighbor said, and gave the kinda full-body flex that was the province of trapeze artists and gymnasts and had Bucky swallowing his tongue, just a little. “Just - one - “

The guy landed with a clatter of boots on the fire escape and skidded a little on the ice. Bucky’s hand went out without conscious thought, and he hauled his neighbor in closer, made sure he was secure, maybe managed to pull him in to press tight up against him, their noses practically touching. 

“Hey,” neighbor said, with a stomach-melting grin, and Bucky grinned slow right back. 

“You’re kinda a one-man disaster area, huh?” 

“Absolutely,” his neighbor said. “It’s not even worth fighting that one.” 

“And Christmas lights were worth this?” Bucky asked. 

“I’ve done worse for less,” his neighbor said, and gave him a ridiculous wink that had Bucky snorting right into his face. They were both considerably less smooth than the ice. At least it was mutual. 

“So I’m Bucky,” he said, figuring this couldn’t get more embarrassing, at least. 

“Clint,” his neighbor said. “Also, I wasn’t putting up lights. I was -” he looked kinda sheepish, and the lopsided grin was possibly even cuter. “I was checking if the roof was safe, ‘cos you said you’d come to the next barbecue.” 

“I take it it’s not,” Bucky said, and Clint shrugged. 

“Willing to risk it,” he said, and Bucky laughed. 

“How about you just come in for pizza instead,” he said, and Clint beamed. 

“You’re makin’ it real easy to fall for you,” he said. 


	59. Chapter 59

“You changed the curtains,” Bucky says, once he’s unwrapped himself from his miles of scarf and settled onto the couch, looking at home there in a way Clint doesn’t want to think about.

“Yup,” Clint says, and sets about his ancient coffee maker with a will. Never has it been tended to so dedicatedly, ‘cos if he doesn’t pay the closest attention, keep himself occupied, he’ll start thinking about the distractions of times before: hands on his hips and a solid chest against his back and hot breath against the back of his neck.

“Always hated those fuckin’ curtains,” Bucky says, and Clint’s developing all kinds of knots, steadily tightening up his back.

“Yup,” he says.

There’s thoughtful silence for a little. Clint wonders if Bucky’s thinking the same thing he is. If he’s remembering the fights those fuckin’ curtains had started, and the way fights between them had always been resolved. He resists the urge to smack the coffee maker, just for taking a little too long to do its job, and goes to stick his head in the refrigerator for a minute, instead.

“You keep it warmer than you used to,” Bucky says, closer to, and Clint lets a small noise slip and then bites off whatever he was gonna say - to be honest even he’s not clear what that would’ve been. Inadvisable, probably. The hairs stand up on the back of his neck and then Bucky’s leaning past him for the beer Clint still keeps left side, bottom shelf, and he rests his hand in the small of Clint’s backs for a second and it’s the stupidest thing Clint’s ever done but he leans back into it anyway, makes eye contact from far, far too close.

“Got no one else to do it for me,” he says, soft and scratchy and far too late, and he’d swear to god that’s relief in Bucky’s eyes, gratitude, something.


	60. Chapter 60

“I was gonna call Tasha,” Clint grouses, “maybe put up the Sad Damn Tree.” That’s its official name, he decided that when he got back from the latest mission and saw what it looked like after a week on the fire escape. Kate thinks there’s something living in it - Clint figures that compared to the Sad Damn Tree the dumpsters in the alley below are prime real estate, so he’s probably good.

Bucky makes a face, ‘cos Bucky’s seen it too, ‘cos Bucky spends enough time on Clint’s couch that he may not, in fact, have a home to go to. Clint considers flipping him off, but it’s not like it’s his fault that Christmas, these last couple of years, has been a disaster. That Clint always kinda hopes for something about the day that feels a little different, a little magical, when mostly it’s full of bruises and beer and the battered remnants of whatever sad collection of decorations Clint’d managed to scrape together.

And he doesn’t want him to go away, either. 'Cos Kate’s in - possibly France? - and Tasha’s in probably DC, and he knows that Tony’s found a new place in Miami. Steve’d muttered something about prior commitments, Sam’s gone home, and -

The first thing Clint sees when the door opens is the lights. Multicoloured and kinda tacky and strung up all around door frames and windows, across the kitchen counter, wound through the railings on the stairs. The tree sure as hell ain’t the Sad Damn one, 'cos that’s still out on the fire escape but it’s been propped up a little better and strung through with lights that blink through the window happily.

Tasha he sees next, and she’s smiling at something Steve’s said, and Simone’s youngest is tugging a little on a long-suffering Lucky’s ears. Sam’s in the kitchen and Tony’s face is on a tablet on the counter and Katie-Kate’s on the couch and Clint has to close the door again, take a breath out in the hallway, 'cos he’s a little afraid that he’s gonna drop to the floor and bawl.

“Merry Christmas,” Bucky says, and his smile is one of the real ones, one of the ones he brings out for special occasions.

“You did this?” Clint asks, and his voice maybe crumbles a little like shitty bodega Christmas cake.

Bucky shrugs one shoulder, like it’s no big deal, and Clint - Clint loves him, he *loves* Bucky Barnes and maybe even better than that it’s kinda looking like he loves Bucky *back*.


	61. Chapter 61

It’s Tuesday, which is for some reason mostly full of old ladies. Clint counts the days like that, he lets time pass like that. Wednesdays it’s women only, so they can do their thing without headscarves; Kate’s on Wednesdays, and Clint gets to lie in. Thursdays there’s boxers, and he’s not sure where they came from, but he likes their tattoos and the way they hold themselves. Fridays, there’s some kinda cheap deal at a local bakery, so Fridays are filled mainly with guilt. Fridays are also - when he gets a second to himself - filled with pastry and apples and cream, a little stale from sitting out so long and bliss settling lightly on his tongue. 

Showboating assholes are mostly weekends and evenings, but over time Clint’s place has kinda filtered those guys out. It’s not a place that selfies well. 

Mondays, Clint closes, ‘cos the cemetery mostly isn’t crowded on Mondays, and Clint likes the extra space for all his guilt. 

So Tuesday, yeah, mostly old ladies. They’re kinda plush, and their hair is a multitude of softly-washed colors, and their tracksuits are right outta the ‘80s. They pinch his cheeks - if he’s lucky, on his face - and bake him cookies, and stroll on the running machines with pink cheeks and all kinds of gossip. Tuesdays are maybe his favorite days, quavering voices offering scathing commentary on people Clint’s never met, it’s like some kinda soap opera and he can’t quite believe he gets to do this as a job. 

So the sharp darkness of the guy in the corner, it’s like a razor blade in Hallowe’en candy. Mavis is close to him in her burgundy velour sweatpants, too close, and Clint goes over to coach her a little and shove himself between them - just incidentally, just like it’s nothing - and he checks the guy out in fleeting sideways glances. 

And yeah, maybe it starts out checking him out like a potential threat, checking for suspicious bulges, weird sweating, dilated pupils, but it kinda turns into checking him  _out_. Turns out - aside from the MJ glove - he’s lethal but normal-looking, doesn’t seem like a threat. But turns out - well. Checking out turns to  _checking out_ , with the focused intensity of his blue eyes, and the so-far-past-stylish stubble, and the lazy-long hair, and Clint last got laid in a yurt in Afghanistan and he’s not even sure how long ago that was. 

(But hey. He can check on Monday.)


	62. Chapter 62

Steve picked up all the Nerf darts under the light switch; someone’d given a gun to Bucky for Christmas, made him smile like nothing else, and now he didn’t see the need for getting out of his chair. Steve deposited them on top of the coffee table and shoved Bucky’s feet off while he was at it, taking the seat on the couch next to him and relaxing back against the throw pillows that both of them insisted the other one had bought. 

“Wasn’t that a resolution?” Steve said, idle, toeing his sneakers off and kicking them towards the door. 

Bucky grunted, vaguely inquiring. 

“To be a little neater, pick up after yourself. I’m sure you said you were gonna -”

“Bite me,” Bucky said, “Mr ‘gonna learn to knit.’”

Steve gestured to the back of the door, where a wobbly red and yellow scarf was draped over a hook, poked through one of the  _many_  dropped-stitch holes. 

“Is that,” he said, “or is that not -”

“That’s a fuckin’ mess, is what that is.” Bucky pulled out his Nerf gun from down the side of the couch and started loading it again, staring at Steve the whole time like  _see, I’m tidying. “_ Besides,” Bucky said, “the main one was getting my GED, which I did, so suck it spangle-pants.” 

Steve sighed the sigh of the deeply long-suffering. Bucky turned on the television with a dart. There were fireworks from somewhere, some different time-zone, gently unfurling tea flowers of beautifully destructive force. 

“So how about this year?” Steve asked. 

“I dunno,” Bucky said, ‘cos as friendly as they’d gotten again there were things he wasn’t quite ready to share. What made him smile a little secretively like that, for one. “I’ll think about it.” 

“There’s a tradition,” Steve said, glancing at the clock in the corner of the screen, half an hour slowly counting down. Bucky followed the direction of his gaze and looked suddenly antsy, glancing towards the window like he had somewhere to be. Steve slung an arm across his shoulders, casual as anything, internally sniggering at how he started to squirm. “They say that whatever you do at midnight, that’s what you’re gonna do for the rest of the year.” He took a breath. “I’m grateful you’re here,” he said. “You’re my best friend, and it means a lot that you’d spend another New Years doing this.” He bit down on his grin, dragging it out a little and watching Bucky get gently gnawed on by guilt. 

“But,” he said, finally, “if there’s somewhere else you gotta be -”

“Love you, Stevie,” Bucky said, smacked a quick kiss against the side of his head and dived for the window and whatever future he had planned. 

It made him smile like that, Steve figured, it had to be a good one. 


	63. Chapter 63

He’s actually not sure where the tradition came from, but it’s a tradition nonetheless. Clint listens to the raucous singing in the street, snorts a little when someone a couple flights down falls loudly up the stairs, and dusts in the sporadic colored light of New Years’ fireworks. 

He’s cleaned the inside of the windows, taken out the empty beer bottles, washed and dried and replaced his one set of sheets. He took the molting Christmas tree down to the curbside and bribed Sasha with a bottle of Stoli to get rid of it for him. His refrigerator’s been scrubbed out, his freezer’s defrosted, and he’s discovered the wonder of drain volcanoes, which are definitely gonna make a reappearance next year. 

It’s important to leave the sweeping until last. He  _does_  have a vacuum cleaner - suck it, Kate - but there’s something symbolic and half remembered in doing it this way, the rhythmic sway of it, the satisfaction of chasing down dust bunnies and evicting them from their corner-caught homes. He can’t remember where the tradition came from but it’s the kinda ritual that  _feels_  like it has meaning. Cleaning out the old year to make room for the new. 

He sweeps the last dust into a dustpan just as the crowd downstairs starts counting down, empties it into the trash and turns to find that his window’s eased open, that a familiar silhouette has eased in. 

“Hey,” Clint says around a smile, and eases his dishpan hands into long dark hair, pulling Bucky in and pressing their lips together on five, easing Bucky’s lips apart for three, tilting his head just exactly right as the crowd yells  _Happy New Year_  and fireworks brighten up the edges of his apartment in a riot of color and light. 

“It’s traditional, right?” Bucky says, pulling away just the barest, just far enough to rest his forehead against Clint’s. He’s smiling in the darkness, Clint can see it not just on his lips but in every line of him, like happiness has found a home for itself there. 

“Yeah,” Clint says, wearing his own smile all the way through him, under his skin, impossible to remove. “Start as you mean to go on.”


	64. Chapter 64

Tony started the file, but Clint’s the one who named it,  _How To Get Bucky’s Groove Back_  saved prominently on every device’s home screen. There’s the obvious, aggressive cognitive recalibration, and the saptastic, which involves Steve Rogers’ sad-face and shared Brooklyn memories. There’s something in there about smelling salts, which hadn’t  _fixed_  anything but had definitely confused him long enough for option A. There’s the back-up side-file which features effective restraints, and the one that Bucky had insisted on which listed methods that’d kill him, if they tried. 

Nowhere, though, nowhere in the documented lists and spreadsheets of data, does it mention  _anything_  about True Love’s Kiss ‘cos that’s not - that’s  _not_  what this is, okay. It’s just - it’s coincidence, or something. 

Clint’d just figured, y’know, We Who Are About To Die Get Smooches, which as a life motto is… way too often applicable, he needs to work on that. And it’d worked like the smelling salts, Bucky freezing like a computer error when Clint kinda faceplanted on his face, only then it’d - it’d continued to work. It’d - 

Bucky called him  _Clint_ , and he barely ever did that when he was  _Bucky_. 

So Clint’s mouth is apparently magic, and Bucky’s blue eyes have thawed, but who knows how long that’s gonna last, right? The Winter Soldier could make a reappearance any second, who knows, so Clint is just - he’s just gonna stay right here. 


	65. Chapter 65

“Maybe they’ll die,” Clint says hopefully.

There’s some moaning, steadily increasing in intensity - this week’s guy’s called Mark, possibly Marco, possibly the  _ohs_ are just enthusiasm. Good to know.

He’s all curled up and messy, like a growth-spurt puppy who’s not quite got the hang of the whole limb thing yet. He’d started the semester on his own side of the room, but it’s been a while now since his own bed’s been taken over by stale cheetos, unwashed hoodies, various palaeolithic weaponry. Now he comes and curls into Bucky’s chest instead, shamelessly demanding petting and increasing the sum total of sexual frustration in the universe by an order of fucking multitude.

“You gotta stop wishing death on the neighbours,” Bucky tells him, even as a particularly loud and rhythmic set of thumping has him wincing, wishing he was close enough to pound on the wall. Wishing there was some kinda pounding going on, anyway.

“I have a bow right here,” Clint says, a little sulky. “They’re lucky wishing’s all I’m doing.”

“Still three weeks ‘til break,” Bucky says, “and I ain’t providing an alibi if you snap and shoot them. You’re gonna have to do something more productive to drown 'em out.”

Clint hums, thoughtful, then pulls away far enough he can look Bucky in the eye, his own oddly serious in the pale blue depths.

“How about you?” He says.

Bucky looks away, shrugs. “I’ve been beating the shit outta things at the gym all day,” he says. “Got a little less anger to work out.”

“Nah, I meant - are you something more productive?”

It’s a hell of a line, and Clint’s face - he can tell it’s a hell of a line, but there’s still something hopeful that’d be easily hidden at the slightest hint of refusal.

There isn’t. Not the slightest goddamn hint.

“Oh BUCK,” Clint yells, just as soon as Bucky’s done with his mouth for long enough, and Bucky laughs helplessly into the little asshole’s neck.


	66. Chapter 66

Clint wakes abruptly, and it takes a second or two to work out what it is that seems so different. The walls of his room are the cool gentle gray of rain-filled days, the interim sort of light that likes to pretend it’s not morning and soothe you back into sleep. The rain is pattering gently against the windows, white noise filling the room, competing with the soft breathing of Bucky who’s sleeping beside him. 

Bucky is  _sleeping beside him_. 

Clint eases down against the pillows again, infinitely careful, like more rides on his barest movement than the simple fact that he hasn’t woken to morning light for months. He’s more used to middle-of-the-night thrashing, silence broken by screaming, hands-up palms-out pleading to accept that it’s just  _him_ , just Clint, that Bucky’s safe here. 

He’s safe here, he is, and his inability to accept that is completely understandable and it’s probably selfish of Clint that it still stings. 

Clint gets himself back into a position that’s a little more suited for just past dawn, then turns his head with a hiss of pillow-friction so he can look at Bucky’s face, lax with unfamiliarly peaceful sleep. It feels a little like he’s stealing something he hasn’t earned, feels somehow more intimate than everything they did that wore Bucky out enough to still be breathing deep and slow and even. 

He’ll wake up eventually. Eventually, the bare morning light will melt into the cold persistent glower of a reluctantly Spring sky, and the kids downstairs’ll start yelling, and there’ll be a different kind of closeness with coffee and crappy TV and couch. For now, Clint edges forward enough that he can brush the barest butterfly kiss against the corner of Bucky’s closed eye. 

 

 


	67. Chapter 67

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NSFW

Clint just figures, y'know, you have to ignore the cameras and just get on with what you have to get on with, try and forget that anything outside of the pool of carefully cultivated white light exists.

Yeah, sometimes that’s easier than others, sure. Sometimes the businesslike touches, unimaginative dialogue, poorly written scenarios actually get to him a little, like he’s an actual actor with the soul of an artist or some shit. Sometimes he gets a little offended that they think he’s the kinda guy who’d fuck someone who owned a circular bed in the first place. Sometimes he has to bite into the pillow not ‘cos it’s _good_  but because it’s seriously the fifth time he’s almost skidded straight off the silky sheets in the last ten minutes and he’s trying not to cackle and ruin the moment.

Sometimes he wishes they were a little more imaginative with how dynamics can work - wishes that laughter was something that was allowed here.

Whatever. Clint lounges back against pillows, wishes he’d snuck his phone on set so he could candy crush between camera angles. There’s loud fraught voices from somewhere, and Clint figures Rumlow’s flaked again, but he can’t actually hear any better 'cos they won’t let him wear his aids on set.

Eventually, someone stalks over, stands by the side of the bed, and Clint grins up at him wide and genuine, 'cos this guy - holy shit, this guy he’s heard of, this guy he’s actually hunted down the back-catalogue of, okay. He’s - he’s fuckin’ beautiful, tall, dark, handsome and an ass that won’t quit. And watching him work is just - it’s inspirational. He doesn’t just screw people, he _destroys_  them, leaves them wrecked and moaning in his wake.

Clint is very much looking forward to being left in freaking pieces after this.

“Hey,” he says, and he probably looks kinda foolish, what with the size of his grin, “hey, so, in case I can’t talk after, can I get your autograph?”


	68. Chapter 68

“I. Er. I guess the bolo arrows?” Clint says, rubbing his fingers across the skin under his eye. Bucky grabs for his hand, brings it up to his lips - absent, automatic - and then holds it in his with his thumb moving gently across his knuckles. 

“It’s okay,” he says quietly. “It’s okay, sweetheart, we don’t have to decide this now. It’ll keep.” 

Clint laughs, a little shaky, shakes his head like he’s decided he’s an idiot and none of Bucky’s carefully crafted arguments will ever convince him otherwise. 

“I don’t understand why this is the thing that gets me,” he says. 

“I don’t know,” Bucky says. “Completely hidden and not at all obvious insecurities, maybe?” Clint’s mouth quirks a little in a smile. “Hidden doubts?”

Clint’s fingers jerk against his at that, tighten automatically and squeeze. 

“Not that,” he says. “Don’t think that.” 

“Besides,” Bucky says, breezing past the moment, “the big decisions are behind us, right? Deciding which weapons to keep in the bedroom ain’t exactly a deal breaker.” 

Clint tugs on his hand and pulls him in, tucking his face into the safe place where Bucky’s neck meets his shoulder, pressing his mouth against the skin. Bucky knows to wrap his arms around him, pull him in tight, let Clint surround himself with him. 

“‘m sorry I’m a mess,” he says. “It’s not ‘cos I’m not sure about this.” 

“I know,” Bucky says, easy, just the way that Clint needs to hear it. “I get it. Slow as you need.” 

Even if Bucky’s had a ring box tucked in with the cleaning supplies for months, now. He gets it, and it’s okay. It’ll keep. 


	69. Chapter 69

It’s brownies.

Clint doesn’t leave out milk, ‘cos it’s not nearly so good for cats as people think, but he never heard that brownies’d break and enter if they didn’t get what they wanted, steal leftovers and beer in exchange for picking up around the place. But somehow he just kinda… assimilates it into his worldview. Grow up pretending you can clamber into comics and the bad guys can’t get you; run away to the circus and hear Romanian and Russian and Iowan folk tales; fight alongside superheroes and big green monsters and gods. When was Clint ever supposed to develop a sense of what’s real?

So he gets used to coming home from missions to a dust free living space, to a blanket folded neatly on the back of the couch, to clean laundry and clean sheets and clean windows. He gets used to absently flicking switches and finding the bulbs’ve been changed for the first time since he moved into the place, that the TV gets a hundred more channels, that the garbage disposal actually  _works_. 

He’s a pretty goddamn good SHIELD agent, not nearly so dumb as he looks, but post-mission party time is a horizontal pyjama party, and he’s barely keeping his eyes open when he unlocks his front door. So it takes him a minute to notice the gentle hum of the vacuum cleaner, the guy standing stock still in the corner of his room. 

“Wha -” he manages to get out, cut off by the clatter of the vacuum hitting the floor, by his back hitting the wall, by a metal hand pressing hard against his throat. 

“I - thought you’d - be smaller,” Clint chokes out. 


	70. Chapter 70

Clint sits in a corner of the infirmary while white-coated Stark employees bandage and cast and stitch all the various battle wounds shared between the Avengers. He waves away anyone that comes near him - all his blood’s stayed inside him, exactly where it’s supposed to be, and it feels like an asshole move to whine about how he just  _aches_  all over. 

Instead he just stays there, quiet and unobtrusive, as the activity slowly dies down around one bed after another, until there’s just a couple nurses still bustling and every other light’s been turned off. 

They’re somewhere in the middle of the tower, so that’s the only indication that maybe it’s later than he thought, and Clint figures he should probably be hungry by now but it’s difficult to filter what he’s feeling enough to work out if that’s true. Mostly - so long as he’s not moving - he feels heavy. Tired. A little like he’s thinking through wet cement. It honestly doesn’t feel worth the effort of trying to get up, at this point, and he ponders snagging the blanket that’s hanging off the gurney right by him, pulling it over him so he can burrito right here, only lifting his arm even a fraction that far ain’t happening any time soon. 

Heavy black boots walk past him - he doesn’t wanna raise his head, ‘cos he just  _knows_  that’s gonna hurt - and the hesitate at the doorway and come back. 

“Barton?”

You kinda expect some kinda voice modulation. Like. Darth Vader, right? But Bucky’s voice - the Winter Soldier, ghost story, myth - it’s scratchy and soft and a little hesitant. Careful. 

“Hey, Bucky,” Clint says, and hisses out a slow breath as he draws one knee up towards his chest, every muscle in his leg protesting loudly. At this rate, he can be vertical in maybe a week. 

“Should you be down there?” 

Clint laughs, can’t help it, regrets it immediately when his stomach muscles protest. It’s halfway a groan when he speaks. “Yeah, it’s recommended medical procedure, this century. No one told you?”

“Who knew Hydra were practicing the latest techniques?” 

And that… was that a joke? Did Bucky just - 

Clint curses every goddamn muscle in his neck and every AIM agent that abused them, ‘cos if he’s missed one of Bucky’s barely-there smiles he’s gonna be  _pissed_. 

“I’m - workin’ up to it,” Clint says, and Bucky inches forward and then back, a little nervous two-step that doesn’t suit his boots. 

“I could - help?” he says, uncertain, and Clint can’t help but grin down at his knees. 

“You’re a pal, Barnes,” Clint says, and braces himself for Bucky’s face, for how much it’s gonna hurt when he levers him to his feet. 


	71. Chapter 71

The Soldier moved large and purposeful, predatory, wide open movement ‘cos no one was gonna get in his way. 

Bucky’s different. Bucky holds himself close. Bucky moves like he’s afraid of brushing against broken glass - except that’s not quite right. He’s afraid he’s  _made_  of broken glass, maybe. Like he’ll hurt anyone he touches, and anyone he touches will hurt him right back, and no one will mean it but that won’t stop him bleeding out. 

Bucky doesn’t touch people, and it’s pretty clear that it’s killing him. 

And maybe Clint knows Steve better, maybe he likes him better, maybe he has this useless case of hero worship that lights up a little every time Steve gives him a smile or a positive word, but the little sad faces every time Bucky slides past without touching - those, Steve can shove right up his ass. 

Clint’s working on proximity. He’s not sure why, exactly. It’s probably - he’s gonna go with self preservation, okay? With the fact that Bucky can’t be tensing up the moment someone’s near him in a fight. That’s most probably what it is, he figures, he tells himself, he’s almost convinced. 

So he doesn’t tease physically like he does with the rest of the team, like he needs to keep himself sane. Doesn’t slap him on the back like he does to Steve, or jab his fingers into his side like Tony hates him for; doesn’t coast gentle fingers like he does down Nat’s spine, or sling his arm around his shoulders like Sam’s. Instead he eases in just a little. Passes him in the hallways and hovers his hand just next to his arm as they cross paths. Holds onto the things he’s handing over just a little too long so he can quirk a little smile when Bucky, confused, catches his eye. He takes the seat next to him in briefings and meetings, so he can lean in just a little and lower his voice into something that’s intimate in every way but the physical, make Bucky snort out a laugh and feel like he’s won the freaking lottery. 

It’s nothing to how he feels when Bucky starts leaning  _back_. 

It’s gradual, so goddamn slow, inches taken where Clint wants freaking miles. But Bucky lets him rest a foot on the edge of his chair, doesn’t duck away when Clint leans past him to get something out of the cupboard, laughs right in his face when they’re fighting over a basketball and almost makes Clint swallow his tongue with how beautiful he is, right then. 

And when there’s the barest, lightest, most careful brush of Bucky’s fingers against the small of Clint’s back while he’s making them coffee he has to swallow hard, three times, before he can make his voice come out right. 

“Sugar?”

“Yes, honey?” Bucky says low, teasing, right in his ear, and he sounds like he’s laughing and holy shit Clint didn’t mean to but this, right here, this feels like love. 

 

 


	72. Chapter 72

Clint can’t even remember when he learned how to braid. He remembers *doing* it in the circus, fingers moving fast as Katja applied her greasepaint, Bertram and Kyrhys tossing a silicone juggling ball back and forth across the trailer while Barney cursed over freaking spandex behind one of the folding screens. He doesn’t think he learned there, though, although he’s not sure whether memories of his fingers in his mom’s hair are anything like reliable. Mostly he remembers her keeping it short - less of it to tangle. Less of it to grab. A lot of things from back then are halfway between memories and dreams, and whether that’s ‘cos of youth or head trauma he’s got no clue.

It’s soothing, though, meditative, and he’s always been grateful when Tasha sits still long enough for him to run slippery Fall-red strands between his fingers and weave them into something beautiful. (He got bored of three strand simplicity before he was fully a teen. His YouTube search history ain’t exactly hero material.)

He never even thought to try 'em out on Bucky, of course. They had some kinda - connection, if you could call it that, forged out of shared missions and the faint stickiness of sex-sweat and semi-dried spunk. It was perfunctory handjobs and post-mission shower sex, heavy breathing gasped into shoulders and necks and jaw lines and never quite hitting the spot.

So he was a little something like horrified when he looked down on a movie night, Bucky sprawled on the floor at his feet, and found that his fingers had been moving on automatic, some kinda padawan braid woven through Bucky’s hair.

He sat there, frozen, for a moment or two - how did you subtly get yourself out of this? Could he disguise this as some kinda freak Avengers Spontaneous Braiding Event? Only then Bucky shifted a little, pushed up into his hand like a cat - one of the big ones, one of the ones that could kill you - and didn’t settle until Clint shifted his hands back into Bucky’s hair.

His hair looked pretty kickass when Clint was through with him. Some kinda Dothraki warrior shit. And Bucky was leaning by the end of it, too, his cheek resting against the inside of Clint’s knee, and Clint could feel something strange and warm in his chest that was under pressure, ready to break open any time.


	73. Chapter 73

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sequel to #72

Bucky didn’t actually slap his hands away, but he made this kind of motion with his elbows that suggested he would, if his fingers were free.

“I got it,” he said, around the hair tie in his mouth, and Clint laughed and curled himself a little more securely against his back so he could better interfere, his arms over Bucky’s shoulders and his fingers in fine black hair.

“The level to which you don’t got it - ” he said, and Bucky growled a little in a way that never failed to make Jin laugh her tiny adorable laugh.

“You really are a f-lying aardvark,” he ground out, and Clint laughed into the curve of his neck.

“And you’re a son of a freaking basset hound,” Clint told him, “and if we wanna get the princess to dance class before they finish all the pasodoble whatevers -”

“Y'know,” Bucky said, finally managing - with a little assistance - to get all the flyaway strands of hair in place and tying it off with a flourish, “some day you’re the one that’s gonna get trapped In a corner by the dance moms, and you can learn more dance vocabulary than Strictly Ballroom taught you.”

“No one needs more than Time After Time and a rooftop. It’s the essence of romance.” Clint loved the way Bucky’s cheeks curved around a smile, and he pressed a stupid kiss against the stubbled skin, his own mouth pulled wide.

 

 


	74. Chapter 74

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sentinel AU

Reality returned slowly. Sound first, high-pitched whistle  _(a song)_  that meant someone, somewhere, was watching a  _(get on)_ television, walls and rooms and corridors away. The strange dry clean taste of oxygen; scent of  _(nerves)_  bleach and blood and poor quality food and all the ways it had reappeared. Scratchy sheets and waffled blankets; the uncomfortable angle of  _(know)_  his neck. 

And threaded somehow through it all, woven over and under and between it, a pleasant voice made deliberately obnoxious and still somehow the best thing he’d ever heard. 

“ - know a song that’ll get on your nerves -” 

Bucky’s eyelids were weighed down with ten ton trucks, impossible to open, but maybe there was something in the smile his brain was wearing, even if the rest of him wouldn’t respond. 

“Hey,” a voice said, warm and drawling, “you’re back.” 

He didn’t remember anything past the corner of El Paso and Mason, sure as hell couldn’t recall whatever the hell made it hurt so much when he shifted his arm just the slightest. 

“Hey no,” the voice said, dismayed, “no, stay here, you’re going full on deep end -” crash into frozen water, the only thing cryo could ever be compared to - “so we need to edge you up to where it’s shallow, with me.” 

Somehow depth became clear and green-blue; somehow there was golden sand and rippled light and a pair of legs treading water - truly hideous purple shorts - stupid choices in every scar on him and fuckin’ exuberance in the sheer volume of them. 

Bucky sucked in a breath like he was breaking the surface, and the wave of approval was almost a touch - tanned fingers tangled in salt-stiffened hair. 

“That’s better, right?” His voice was warm like sunlight. “Float right here like a boat. I’m great at boats.” 

“Guide Barton!”

The new voice was cold and edged around with teeth. 

“Aw,” the warm voice said, “busted.” 

“What have you been told about bothering the unbonded? If you cannot remain at your assigned post you will -” 

The voice faded quicker than it ought to - senses were messed up for a while after a zone - but sun-warm words somehow still made their way through. 


	75. Chapter 75

Bucky found Clint sitting at the edge of the roof, chin resting on one knee, his other purple sneaker dangling over a whole lot of nothing. Bucky considered for a minute - took in the defeated shoulders, not defensive - and then sat down next to him, kicking heavy boots over the void.

“You ever feel like you’re kind of a shitty person?” Clint asked, absent, and Bucky snorted. 

“No, never,” he said, dry as a whole pile of bones, “what’s that like?” But he shifted over anyway, just a little, quick nudge of his shoulder into Clint’s and away. 

“Yeah,” Clint said. “Stupid question.” 

“I’ve had stupider.” Bucky turned to look at his profile for a second, darker shade of blond, paler shade of blue, only the comparisons these day tended to go the other way, ‘cos he was a sucker for a tragedy in human form. “What brought this on?” 

“Babyvengers,” Clint said. “Makin’ goo-goo eyes at each other.” He huffed out a breath. “You can be pleased with progress and resentful as hell at the same time, right? I swear it was never this easy to be queer, growin’ up.” 

“I dunno,” said Bucky, and his heart wasn’t in his mouth, he wasn’t sure where it’d ended up, but it’d left a weird sort of aching hollow in its wake. “There were ways to make it less hard.” 

Clint snorted, this time, definite upping in the humor there. 

“That’s what -” sidelong look, quirked eyebrow; Bucky rolled his eyes. “He said?” 

“He, she, they, whatever,” Bucky said, and Clint smiled into the frayed denim that covered his knee, shifted over just a little, quick nudge of his shoulder into Bucky’s; he took his time about shifting away. 


	76. Chapter 76

He’s starting to get a handle on things here. Who will kill him without breaking a sweat (glitter fingers, hammer man, Romanova), who will try their damndest but ultimately fail (the incredible shrinking man, armor, other armor, the flying arachnid), who has some kinda moral objection against it (robot thing, Steve). 

And then there’s this guy. 

Bucky honestly cannot fathom how this guy fits in. He’s been watching him a while now - with other, better adjusted people, that’d maybe mean an hour or so, but Bucky’s been at this for days. Turns out there are all kinda nooks around the base, places that’ve been set up for snipers, nests and ropes and all the best snacks. And the rafters over the target range are the best at this time of night, when the resounding crash of bullets is long over and there’s just the gentle thwip-thump of bullseye after bullseye after…

He’s got skill, that’s never gonna be in question. He’s got the kind of skill that dries out your mouth and sets things to clenching in your stomach. And he’s patient, dedicated, almost meditative in the regular draw and release, it’s better than counting sheep for Bucky, picturing it and reviewing it’s the only way he’ll sleep. 

How the hell an  _archer_  ended up in the Avengers, though, he’s got no clue. How the hell an archer keeps  _up_  with the Avengers, ‘cos there’s no question he does, there’s no question they’d kick him excruciatingly politely to the curb if he wasn’t of use. 

(Not that Bucky’s waiting for that, no sir.)

This guy has to be something special. He has to be something special in a way that’s not Bucky’s new interpretation of it, which really, it’s not his fault. You picture a guy to get yourself to sleep, it’s not a huge stretch that you’re gonna be picturing the guy in - other situations. That your brain’s gonna get right on picturing without you, gonna wake you up with it, sticky and stupid and over half a century past when this shoulda stopped. 

Maybe he should just get back to sheep counting, stay where it’s safe, keep far away from how this guy’s arms look when he’s hauling back his bow. 


	77. Chapter 77

Clint’s solution is to start buying louder snacks. First it’s ‘cos he doesn’t know who’s taking them - it’s the easily accessible ones that go first, and that could be anyone, up to and including the roombas. After the rafters start going, which limits the pool a little, after he figures out by process of elimination which asshole it is, it’s… some reason other than knowing when he should be showing off. Some reason that’s not the little shiver he gets down his spine when he knows stormy gray eyes are watching him train. Even inside his own head he’s a little ashamed of it.

So the Bugles and Doritos tell him that Barnes has got just about as shit a sleeping pattern as Clint has, post-Loki. That Bucky - they’re gettin’ there, he’s working up to an actual conversation - has to be actively *seeking him out*, as often as he’s corner-crunching.

That Bucky’s the only one that bothers visiting, when he’s laid up with a screwed up knee. He’s tucked away in the vents, sure, and it’s not like he’s saying much, but he’s *there*.

Clint slurps the last of his violently green jello cup and hums up at the ceiling, the gentle kind of mellow that morphine carries with it.

“Man,” he says, to himself as far as anyone’s gonna know. “Sure wish I had some Reese’s right about now.” And he hopes, and he hopes.


	78. Chapter 78

Clint doesn’t want Reeses.

Or he does, in the abstract way that anyone wants them, in the way where a little sugar never goes astray and he could use something to balance out the way his knee is still dully throbbing even through the drugs. But the sugar helps the medicine go down, it balances out with taste for taste, and it does fuck all about the pain in the first place. Pleasure balances pain.

And that sounds like - he’s not an *animal*. He’d say he’s too old for one night stands, if he weren’t too incompetent for anything else. And it’s not like he *doesn’t* want to have Bucky bend him over the nearest surface, because he has eyes, and Bucky has tanks, and Clint has had *thoughts*. But his knee fuckin’ hurts, and nothing sounds good except -

Sometimes you get hurt and the hurting isn’t even so bad as the indifference to it. Curled up in a corner and choking on your own sobs and eventually the tears stop and then what? Clint’s been picking himself up since he was seven years old, since Barney hit puberty. Clint’s been wiping away his own tears with the back of his own grubby arm for longer than that. Clint doesn’t -

He doesn’t *know* that someone’s fingers in his hair would make him feel better, gentle pressure and the occasional tangle-caught tug. He doesn’t know that body heat would feel better than chemical packs, that falling asleep to the beat and intonation of someone else’s voice would feel better than counting sheep in time with the throbbing of his knee.

He’d like the chance to find out, though.


	79. Chapter 79

Clint took the tiny sword out of his fruity drink and flipped it across his knuckles, almost losing control of it twice and then flicking it, with pinkie and thumb, into the bartender’s shirt pocket.

It was a classy kinda place, button-ups and suspenders on the staff, and Clint probably should’ve got from that alone that this wasn’t a date that was gonna work out; the guy hadn’t even bothered showing up, and now Clint was feeling out of place in his frayed hoody and purple sneakers, sticking out among the too-short hipster pants and loafers without socks.

“Was that a threat?”

Clint looked up, past the tiny plastic sabre, and met the bartender’s amused gray eyes. He was just as dressed up as the rest of them, his long hair tied at the back of his neck, but he hadn’t shaved for a couple days and his smirk was conspiratorial.

“Maybe I was just trying to impress you,” Clint said, curled his mouth into the kinda lopsided grin that Tasha had told him once was a good look on him. “Is it working?”

The bartender rocked his hand back and forth, dubious, and Clint grinned wider and took a big gulp of his pretty purple fruity drink.

“I can do better,” he said.

By the time the place cleared out, a stupid hour in the morning, Bucky’s suspenders were hanging down by his hips, his sleeves were rolled up, and he was trailing Clint 507 to 511, but only since they’d lodged the beaker in the light fitting, throwing blind. The lights came on abruptly, and Clint blinked, startled.

“Aw, lights,” he said, “shit, ’ve I been keeping you?” He slid off his barstool, staggered a little upon contact with the floor, ‘cos those fruity drinks had not stopped coming.

“Yeah,” Bucky said, dry as a martini, “this’s been hell.” And he smiled, slow and friendly-like, and seriously, the fruity drinks were to blame for how Clint swayed a little into him, nosed across his cheek before finding his mouth and pressing his lips to the smile there.

“So how drunk are you right now?” Bucky asked, serious for a second.

“Sober enough to kick your ass at sabre tossing,” Clint told him.

“Yeah, I’m thinking that’s not the most persuasive argument, with you,” he said, and his grin came with a head duck that had Clint leaning in again, helpless.

Bucky indulged him for a minute, kept leaning back in like this thing was gravity, and then he had Clint’s phone in his hand and was typing something into it. Clint would be more interested, only Bucky wasn’t even trying to fend him off his neck and just. All that *skin*.

“So you’re gonna call me when you sober up, right?” He said, and Clint blinked at him.

“For a rematch?” He asked, and Bucky laughed.

“Aw, man, you are just all sorts of adorable. Sure, rematch, why not. After.” And his smile was impossible not to return.


	80. Chapter 80

Barney’s shoe scraped against the rough concrete of the poorly patched sidewalk, and it was like a sixth sense, like the shape of the sound - how loud it seemed, how out of place - let him know something was wrong just too goddamned late to act on it. He let the shove in his back carry him forward into the alleyway, stepping into it, moving forward far enough that he could spin on his heel and at least get a look at whichever of his multitude of fuck-ups was in his face  _this_ week. 

And yeah, his gallery of mugshots was fairly extensive, but - this guy’s face was a little familiar, tickling something in the back of his brain, but not one he’d seen from this close before, he was pretty sure. That didn’t ease the cold grip of fear on the back of his neck, ‘cos Barney’d pissed off plenty of people he’d never met. 

The guy was broad more than tall, that was the overwhelming impression, helped along by the henley that was a little too tight, someone that wasn’t used to shopping for themselves - prison, maybe? Then again, there were too many of those fuckin’ paramilitary groups running around in their little uniforms, and Barney had definitely gotten on the wrong side of a few of those. He had long, ragged hair, gray eyes, a coldly assessing look in his eyes. And - oh,  _fuck_  - his fist was curled closed and  _metal_ , and that was ringing all sorts of bells that Barney didn’t want fuckin’ ringing. He’d been using a gun for a while now, but hell if this didn’t itch for his bow, if only for the distance that the weapon implied; he’d  _heard_  things about the Winter Soldier. 

 _Fuck_. 

The guy wasn’t visibly armed, at least (and the asshole part of his brain, which was… most of it… had a quiet little snicker at the accidental pun). He was eyeing Barney curiously, taking him in, like he was looking for something specific. 

“Guess I can see it,” he said, eventually. His voice was low, husky, like he wasn’t quite used to using it, and a hell of a lot more Brooklyn than Barney was expecting. 

“You here to take me out?” he said, and the brief flash of teeth in a smile was the most unnerving thing yet. 

“Nah,” he said, “I’m a one man kinda guy.” He fumbled in his pocket and yanked out a crumpled piece of paper, slapped it against Barney’s chest. Barney looked down, reflexive, saw those fancy curly letters, gold foil,  _you are cordially invited_ … 

“What the fuck?” he said. 

“Welcome to the goddamn family,” the Soldier said, with another of those deeply unsettling smiles. “Let him down and I’ll kill you, ‘cos god knows why but he wants you there.” 

“…Clint?” Barney gaped at the invitation some more, and when he looked up again, the danger he was in somehow slip-sliding out of his head at this latest revelation, the Soldier had retreated to the end of the alley. 

“Bring a gift, asswipe,” he said over his shoulder, and then he was gone. 


	81. Chapter 81

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warning for referenced torture.

The ragged scream tailed off into panting which hitched into something like sobs, then something closer to laughter, impossibly out of place in this room of dark brick and rusted metal and flickering light. 

“Aaw, who told you guys I’m ticklish? Barnes,” Clint raised his voice a little, and it was wrecked and frayed and filled with all the asshole attitude the man had ever had. “Barnes, you tell them I’m ticklish?”

“Shut the  _fuck_  up, Barton,” Bucky growled, straining against the fucking  _manacles_  they’d pinned him down with. 

“Yeah?” Clint said, a little quieter, “you gonna make me?” 

“The second I get out of this I’m gonna shut your fuckin’ mouth for you,” Bucky said, and the man standing by him frowned. 

“We’re sure of our intel?” he said, and watched Bucky’s face carefully as they did something that made Clint cry out, sharp and loud, then pant out curses on every breath. Bucky froze himself - he had the practice - and stared him down. “Perhaps we should have tried the captain after all.” Then he flinched and turned at the sound of something distant exploding, a resounding and familiar  _clang_. 

“Maybe you shoulda,” Bucky said, through a grin that was filled all full of teeth. 

It was chaos after that, bright light and impossible noise, and somewhere in the middle Steve used the edge of his shield to sever the chain that was holding Bucky down. Bucky stumbled forward, right into Steve, then shoved the other man away and staggered over to where Barton was huddled, the hand that was still functioning clenching against his side like he still wanted to be part of the goddamn action. 

“Hey,” he said, low and awful and torn and somehow still fuckin’ smiling, “hey, Bucky -”

“Shut the  _fuck_ up,” Bucky said, unsteady and breathless, and curved silver metal behind his ear and into his hair, so impossibly careful, as he pulled him forward into a kiss.


	82. Chapter 82

“Um.” 

Clint ignored it, little niggle in his ear like a gnat. There were better things to focus on, like Bucky’s tongue in his mouth, the way he never held back when he was kissing Clint, sniper-focus on what Clint liked, what worked, and then the iron-cast determination to do it  _again_. 

“Um, guys?”

It was next to impossible to get at  _skin_  when Bucky was all dressed up as angry Barbie, all black leather and guns. Clint made do with biting a gentle line along Bucky’s jaw, cold metal fingers tracing his biceps a welcome antidote to the heat of the midday summer sun. 

“Could you -” 

“Fuck off, Scott,” Bucky said, gravelly and lazy, and even just far enough to speak was  _too goddamn far_. Clint tangled a hand in his hair and  _tugged_ , and the noise that came out of Bucky’s mouth was goddamn  _obscene._

“Yeah,” Scott said, a little helpless, vocal equivalent of wringing his hands, “but the cops kinda want their car back -” 


	83. Chapter 83

“Tony?” Clint’s voice was thinning out, and he was pretty sure that meant that it wasn’t only the comms that were fucked. Tiny snazzy Stark-designed sleek multi-functional expensive as hell, and he’d give anything for the flesh-colored clunky BTEs he’d had in the ‘80s. 

“Ste-”

Some days, he kinda wished for silence. Avengers base frat-house, and it always put him a little on edge, which was probably a fucked-up something to thank his father for. But he forgot what he was wishing for, forgot about the world-muffling weirdness of it, how goddamn uneasy it was when you couldn’t hear someone coming. ‘cos he was certain, all of a sudden, that there was someone breathing in here with him. Some shift in the air, something he couldn’t possibly goddamn feel but he  _knew_. He knew. 

 _So maybe you could hit the lights,_  he said,  _if you’re gonna kill me and all._

The lights didn’t come on, but that didn’t mean shit about whether there was a response, so he rolled himself sideways, shifted position, hoped like hell he was moving as quiet as he thought he was. He’d lost his fucking bearings when the lights had gone out, when the comms had gone down, when some kinda EMP had gone off, Clint assumed, although what he knew about that shit could fill Tony Stark’s pinkie. 

Move far enough, though, and you’re gonna hit a wall; search hard enough, though, and you’re gonna hit a light-switch. And if you didn’t find one of those there’d be a door handle, electronic locks disabled, and the witch-green half-light of emergency lighting. 

Clint glanced back over his shoulder and then stopped, took a couple steps back into the room. There was another eerie green outline right opposite this one, and curiosity may’ve killed the cat but Clint had always been more of a dog person, anyway. He slipped across and opened the door, and then swore, loud and silent, when he saw what was inside. 

It was like a goddamn fairy tale. Beautiful sleeper, skin white as snow, trapped in a glass fuckin’ coffin all wrapped up in ice. Clint couldn’t help reaching out to touch, try to reassure himself that this wasn’t in fact some kinda screwed up dream, and the heat of his hand left an imprint in the frost there, like he’d disrupted the spell, like the freeze-ray’d stopped working, and he watched in idiotic stillness as the man’s eyelids fluttered, as he started to wake. 


	84. Chapter 84

“Marriage,” Steve said, and Clint’s eyes were dancin’, and Bucky knew he hadn’t quite got it yet but he was gonna. He looked like some kinda movie star in his suit, his hair golden in the day’s last sunlight, in the reflected tiny stars that Wanda and Vision had threaded into the trees. 

“Marriage is what brings us together, today.” 

Clint’s eyes, those baby blues that couldn’t hide a goddamn thing he was feeling widened, and the start of an incredulous smile tugged at the corners of his mouth, the lines around his eyes showing how familiar the expression had to be. Still worth watching, though, still worth noting the tiniest differences, still worth collecting them up and storing them deep in his middle where butterflies fluttered and snakes slithered and all the cliches of impossible to describe emotion made their home. 

“That blessed arrangement,” Steve said, and Clint choked on the first bubble of laughter, and everyone in the goddamn garden joined in on “that dream within a dream,” and Bucky couldn’t handle the way Clint looked at him, at the sheer shining joy in his eyes. 

“Asshole,” Clint said, and signed, “I’m gonna get you for this,” and Bucky’d have tugged him in for a kiss if he weren’t laughing so hard, if he weren’t waiting for the moment where he got official permission. So he pressed his lips to Clint’s forehead instead, to his temple and his cheekbone and the skin just in front of his ear. 

“As you wish,” he said.


	85. Chapter 85

“Aaw, Clint,” Bucky said, and there was the warmth of laughter in his voice, and Clint buried his head a little further into his arms. “Clint, you didn’t?” 

“Yeah, like you’ve ever told Tasha no,” he said. His ear was throbbing with heat, and it was making him feel a little shaky and sick, and he hated that  _Bucky_ , of  _all fuckin’ people_  was here to see that. 

“One time,” Bucky said, thoughtful. “Regret it now, though.” 

“Yeah?” Clint said, raising his head a little, scratching absently at the spot of dried blood his ear’d left on the sleeve of his shirt. 

“Yeah,” Bucky said. He looked awkward for a second, turned around so he could settle himself in next to Clint, not have to meet his eye. “She said she had this cute friend -”

“Right,” Clint said.  _Shit_. And he shoved his head back in his arms, and accidentally bumped his ear, the lance of pain shocking a hiss out of him, stupid kiddie tears springing to his eyes. 

“Aaw, sugar,” Bucky said, and Clint shrugged him off ‘cos sympathy was one thing, but Bucky calling him pet names was beyond what he could cope with right now. He stiffened a little at Bucky’s fingers just teasing at the ends of his hair, then abruptly gave in and let himself relax into it when his fingers slid deeper, stroked along his scalp. 

“How come you regret it?” Clint asked, always a masochist, he had the metal through his ear to prove it. 

“She was right,” Bucky said, and Clint hummed a little as he scritched the crown of his head. “He’s fuckin’ cute, and he makes the best noises -” Bucky tugged, just a little, and Clint didn’t entirely succeed in biting off his groan - “and now he’s got an earring, and that’s kinda -” 

He cut himself off when Clint’s head flew up, when Bucky’s hand got tangled in his hair and Clint’s forehead nearly smashed into his nose. 

“You regret it?” he said. “You want -”

“I always wanted,” Bucky said, and his eyes dropped to Clint’s mouth like this was some kinda rom com film, like Clint was the leading man, and he leaned in all slow. “Lemme kiss it better,” he said, half-laughing, and it shouldn’t be so hot when Bucky proved himself such a cheesy goddamn nerd, but Clint couldn’t rightly complain when the guy’s tongue in his mouth…


	86. Chapter 86

Steve’s laughing, biting down on the edge of his shield like that does anything at all to hide it. Bucky doesn’t care, whatever, the punk has no respect for existential crises. He tips his head back against the wall and continues ranting to his less than sympathetic audience. 

“And then - if the fuckin’  _glistening muscles_  ain’t enough, like he couldn’t’ve avoided the hydrant, some AIM bullet cracks his bow in half. But does that stop him? Oh no, that little shit  _garrotes_  some bumblebee fucker. Swear to god, Stevie, it was the hottest thing I ever -” he pushes upright at the sight of Clint limping towards them. He’s head to toe concrete dust, his hair’s spiked with sweat, there’s a cut by his hairline that’s bleeding a little, just at his temple, like some hair and makeup department wanted to just put that last touch on perfection. 

“Barton!” Bucky hollers, and Clint stops, startles like a goddamn deer, makes it as far as the alley opposite before Bucky takes him down. He’s careful about it, hits Barton high and off-center so when they fall it’s with Bucky on the bottom, his vest absorbing most of the impact. There’s little sweat trails through the concrete dust, Jesus  _fuck_. 

“What?” Clint says, wide eyes, like he’s got no clue what’s got Bucky all worked up, “what’d I do?” 

“You’re a goddamn menace,” Bucky tells him, “and also possibly the most gorgeous thing this side of Hedy Lamarr. I got like five ways I want to wreck you before we even get out of this alleyway, if that’s something you’d be interested in.” 

There’s a second as Clint takes this in, blinking those beautiful baby-blues at him like he’s got a head injury - shit. He’s got a head injury. Bucky lifts a hand to gently touch the skin by the cut, making sure it’s stopped bleeding, that Clint’s okay; Clint leans into his hand without anything like hesitation. 

“Maybe we should get you to a doctor first, huh?” Bucky says, coolin’ it off a little, smiling like he hasn’t since back when he knew what flirting was. Clint looks at Bucky’s mouth, the slow curl of it, and his pupils visibly dilate. He licks his lips, red-wet contrast to the concrete-dust pale of the rest of him, and Bucky can’t be held responsible for leaning up to taste that, to tease his way inside.


	87. Chapter 87

“Hey,” Clint lowered his voice to say (but not far enough, not far enough), “who’s the hottie in the oh shit that’s Bucky Barnes.” 

Tasha, in a rare moment of less than perfect composure, sniggered into her coffee cup. 

But how was Clint supposed to - there were certain  _immutable facts_  about the Winter Soldier, okay? He had eyes like the frozen wastes of Siberia, and an arm that could punch through the side of a tank, and the ragged-cut chin-length hair of that weird kid in the corner of homeroom who listened to The Cure. Clint didn’t even actually  _go to high school_ , and he still knew this, it was like it was written into the very blueprints of the universe. 

“Shit, did I - is this a different dimension?” Clint asked. Steve, who had apparently discovered the wonders of slide transitions, looked exasperated at the front of the room. “Are there goatees?” 

“Always,” Tony said, stroking his like a beloved pet. 

“Does anyone except the late ‘90s Lothario have a goatee, right now,” Clint asked flatly. The team ignored him, which was one indication he was in the right place, at least; Tony balled up a sticky note and threw it in Clint’s direction. It flew about halfway, unfolded in mid-air, and descended in front of Bucky Barnes who Clint had decided did not, in fact, exist. 

See, if Bucky didn’t exist, then Clint couldn’t look at him. And if Clint couldn’t  _look_  at him, he sure as hell couldn’t  _stare adoringly_ at him, which was frankly a real danger. 

The Avengers had stylists now. The stylists were employed by Stark Industries, were beings of no natural fear, and were getting Clint’s purple hoodies out of his cold dead hands and at no other time. They had specific color palettes, and ideas about flattering cuts, and apparently the persuasive powers of the devil itself ‘cos Bucky Barnes had  _cut his hair_. 

It - there was - he - 

Clint whined faintly up at the ceiling. The ceiling was safe. The ceiling would never betray him with a beautiful jawline and rumpled sex hair that made Clint want to beg for nonspecific sex acts, please, any time now. 

“If you’re done, Clint?” Steve said, a little pissy. 

“Yup,” Clint told the ceiling. “Totally done for.” 

A small sticky-note, expertly folded and perfectly aimed, bounced off the end of his nose. 

 _Hottie, huh?_  it said, and Clint made the unbelievable mistake of looking over to where the beautiful bastard was  _smiling_. 


	88. Chapter 88

Clint looked up at the figure in the doorway and swore softly, knocking his head back against the uneven stone behind him, his hands wrapped, white-knuckled, around his raised knees. 

“Can we, uh,” he says, and his voice is so ragged now, threadbare and worn, “can we go back to my dad? Or -” 

“Shit,  _Clint -”_

_“_ Or Bobbi, that’d be - that was good, right? Really had me going for a minute -” 

“Clint.” 

Solid weight crashes against stone, but he’s got those knee-pads that’ve prompted so very many comments over the years. Loki forgot those, at first, but over time he’s gained verisimilitude. Clint flinches away from the cool metal of his hand, adjusted by degrees until now it  _feels_ like him. 

“You want me to beg?” he says, helpless. “‘cos I can -” 

“Sweetheart -” and there’s a thing. Loki must’ve loved someone, sometime, must’ve somehow understood the agony of it to get that tone of voice just right. Learn something every day. 

“Please,” Clint says, flat and hoarse and too goddamn tired to layer in the desperation but somehow still soaked in it. He looks into gray eyes that have never been quite right before and are somehow now perfect, and he’s scared out of his mind that that just means he’s started remembering it wrong. “Please stop using his goddamn face.” 

Hands cup his face, one callused and warm, one cool ridged metal, and he’d honestly thought he didn’t have tears left. 

“Clint,” Bucky tells him, low and desperate, “it’s me, I swear.” 

“Yeah,” he says, drops the words carefully into the hole in his chest, “that’s what they always say.” 

 

 


	89. Chapter 89

“This is - I swear to god, Steve, this is the most fuckin’ stupid thing you’ve ever made me do.” 

Steve isn’t listening, because Steve has this stupid rule about ‘serving’ ‘customers’ and tends to spend his time out front. Bucky pounds out his frustrations into the bread dough instead, knuckling it hard enough that the lines of his prosthetic imprint themselves even through the plastic gloves. 

“He’s coming,” Steve hisses through the curtain, all the fuckin’ subtlety of a projectile to the face, and Bucky rolls his eyes. 

“I  _don’t care_ ,” he hisses back, but - the dough is probably due a rest, anyway, so he puts it in the bowl, covers it in saran wrap, puts it in the proving drawer. And then,  _then_ , maybe, he edges a little closer to their bottle-cap curtain. 

Clint’s on fine form today. He’s got two different colored stains on his purple shirt, and it’s barely 10am. His hair looks like a bird’s been nesting in it, he’s got a couple band-aids around his thumb and forefinger, and he’s grinning like the sun’s come out. 

This is the most stupid thing Steve’s ever made him do. 

“Toasted bagel, cream -” Steve calls through. 

“ - cheese, scallions,” Bucky finishes with him, “yeah, I got it,” and Clint directs his grin at the shadows in which Bucky lurks. His heart jumps into his mouth, seriously, and maybe his stomach resettles to take its place ‘cos he’s got a weird hollow fizzy sensation where his stomach ought to be. 

“ _Fuck fuck fuck_ ,” he chants under his breath as he perfectly slices the bagel in two, ‘cos he’s actually doin’ this and he must be a moron to expect anything that Steve Rogers plans to work. He assembles the bagel and wraps it in paper, same as usual, and brings it out to the front. And he  _tries_  to ease off the scowling, a little. 

“Thanks Bucky,” Clint says, and he gives him one of those shy little smiles that are so different from his beaming sunshine grin but somehow better, ‘cos they’re never for anyone else. Bucky ducks his head and pushes back through the curtain, and he can practically  _feel_  Steve rolling his eyes behind him. 

“Holy shit,” Clint says distantly, “it’s a heart-shaped bagel. That’s all kinds of adorable. Are these for Valentine’s day?” 

Bucky pounds his head against the side of the fridge. 

He didn’t expect anything, and therefore it is impossible to be disappointed. That’s the rule. That’s what he’s still trying to convince himself when he’s sweeping the store come closing, Steve already having donned his battered leather jacket and left, ‘cos he won’t listen to Bucky that he should wear something nicer for a date. The rain that’s been threatening all day has started pattering against the windows, and it feels kinda appropriate for Bucky’s glowering mood. 

The bell tings and he looks up automatically, about to tell the customer that they’re  _closed_  already but his mouth kinda goes dry. 

Clint’s soaked through, right through to the bone, and how he’s managed that in the few minutes since the rain even started Bucky honestly has no clue. His hair’s dark with rainwater, plastered close to his head, and there’s a drop running down the center of his throat that Bucky just wants to  _taste_. 

“It’s March 3rd,” Clint says, and Bucky’s eyes snap up to his face, to how Clint’s looking a little incredulous, a little hopeful. 

“Took you all day to work that out, huh?” Bucky asks, and it oughta come out mocking but he honestly just sounds fond. 

“I’m - kind of a mess,” Clint says, biting his lip as Bucky stows the broom and moves in closer, and every line of his face is saying  _me? Really?_  

Bucky snorts a little, cups the side of Clint’s face, leans in to sip rainwater from his lips ‘cos yeah. Yeah, god help him,  _really_. 


	90. Chapter 90

Clint saw her coming from a mile away, easy. It wasn’t like there was much of anything else to look at, not until the adult birds returned to their nest, so he turned his lens on her and got a couple shots that she’d kill him if he ever released. Maybe he’d give them to Tony as a birthday present, instead. 

“Ms Potts,” he drawls, and then has to say it again a little louder ‘cos the wind up here's blowing something fierce. “What brings you out here?” 

“Tony needs a favor,” she tells him, crossing her arms across her chest to hold her flapping jacket closed. He starts to unzip his fleece to offer, but she shakes her head. And okay, maybe it was a little stained, a little covered in feathers, but she really didn’t have to look like  _that_  about it. 

“Tony owes me more favors than he can afford,” Clint says, turns to take another couple shots of the nest purely for the look of the thing. 

“Tony says he can get you an in with the Star Wars cast,” she says, and he does everything possible to not visibly react but this is  _Pepper_. She sees all. 

“I hate people,” he says, which is true, although incomplete as a statement. 

“On the  _set_ ,” she says, and shit. Shit, okay, that would be like a lifelong dream come true. Also, he’s heard there are puffins. Clint fuckin’ loves puffins. 

“What’s the catch?” he asks, and Pepper rolls her eyes. 

“For anyone else this wouldn’t be a catch, Clint, you know that? This would be an  _opportunity_. To shoot the latest StarkPhone promo material -” 

“Urgh,” Clint groans. He’s ignored. 

“- with the hottest up-and-coming actor -” 

“Aaw,  _actors_ ,” he says with disgust. 

“- who asked for you personally,” she finishes, and he blinks. 

“…someone knows who I am?” 

Pepper slaps him lightly on the back of the head for that, and he supposes that’s deserved - he’s not ever gonna be a household name, but he’s fairly well-known in some circles. Of course, those circles are generally of the reversible fleece, binoculars around the neck kind. The last time he did anything vaguely celebrity-adjacent was a portfolio for a model, and that had been almost too easy. The camera had loved him. 

And yeah, maybe Clint had a little, too. And maybe that was a part of why he’d stopped with the clients that could  _talk_. 

“So who’s this actor?” he asks, and Pepper smiles just slightly, turning to start making her way down the hill, knowing that Clint’s going to follow her. 

“He’s in that new POW film,” she says, and doesn’t even have to look at his blank face before she continues, “which you’d  _know_  about if you ever watched anything aside from Dog Cops and David Attenborough.” 

“There is no other reason for televisions to exist,” he tells her solemnly. 

“His name’s James Barnes,” she continues, and Clint stumbles over nothing, staggers, desperately holds onto his camera. 

“ _Bucky?”_ he says. 


	91. Chapter 91

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Daemon!AU

Bucky’s - not entirely clear what happened. He was - there was a rooftop, he remembers that much, remembers cursing when the treacherous fuckin’ gravel skidded out from under his boots and embedded itself in his palm. He remembers he wasn’t the only one up there, blond hair and half-hearted grin, and now everything’s dark and dusty and he’s not sure he can breathe right. 

He thinks, fingers-crossed, that the tip-tilted feeling is entirely inside his head. Gravity seems to be working right, he’s not sliding across what’s left of the floor - desks, abandoned phones, drifts of paper, he guesses maybe part of the ceiling caved, he’s grateful they’d cleared it out. 

Jesus, everything hurts. 

He’s not sure how long he’s laid there, taking stock, but there’s something warm against his fingers, something whining gently in his ear. 

“Hey Lucky,” he says, tries to say, says something close to it. “Y’talkin’ to me ‘gain?” ‘cos it’s been a lonely few days. Steve’s been in the lab that’s still locked against Bucky, and Barton’s been mostly doin’ his sleeping in his room, and Lucky’s chosen not to curl up next to his hip, or flump down across his lap, or wander the floor and occasionally stop by for scritches. 

Shit, Barton. 

“Lucky,” he says, and he pushes himself up on his elbows. The room sways around him, and he’s 85% sure that it’s just his brain, but the other part of him is thinking that maybe the building’s gonna come down, that he wasn’t alone on the goddamn roof. “Lucky.” He gets the dog by the scruff of the neck, makes sure he’s paying attention. “You gotta - get Steve up here, you gotta find Clint, he’s - I don’t know where he’s -” 

Lucky whines again, pushes in close, close enough that Bucky can rest his lopsided head against the dog’s back even as he’s trying to push him away. 

“I’m good,” he says, least believable lie he’s ever told. “You gotta get Barton.” 

“Learned my name, huh?” a familiar voice says, and Bucky’s so goddamn relieved he could cry. 

(Lucky won’t tell.)


	92. Chapter 92

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Clint trying to surprise Bucky for his birthday

“Who sent you?” 

The man’s mouth had dropped open, sweat beading on his forehead. His eyes were darting frantically from side to side, desperately searching for someone to get him out of this mess, but the room was dark and the tower’s living quarters were deser-

There was a stifled giggle from behind the couch. 

“What,” Bucky ground out, not letting up on his grip, “the  _hell_  is going on?” 

“Um…” Steve rose from behind the couch, hands up, and then reached down to grab Tony by the scruff of the neck and haul him up too. Sam appeared from behind the bar; Bruce was behind the counter in the kitchen. Clint sauntered in from the corridor that led to the living quarters and took one look at the scene before rolling his eyes. 

“ _Told_  you. Hey, Marcus.” 

“Who’s Marcus?” Tony asked, as Bucky finally let go, Clint’s acknowledgement enough for him to ease off the watchfulness. 

“I’m Marcus,” the man Bucky had released said, his voice shaking a little. “Hey, Clint.” 

“Tony,” Steve said, “you have to start learning your employees’ names!”

“Why bother,” Clint asked rhetorically, “when ‘hey you’ works so well?” 

“Can someone please  _explain_  -” Bucky was steadily losing his grip on his annoyance, now. 

“Told you,” Clint said, quiet, smug.

“I - happy birthday?” Steve said. Natasha - who had apparently been hiding successfully behind a  _ficus_ , what the hell - blew a party horn. Steve looked abashed. “You used to love surprises.” 

“I did?” Bucky said, and Steve’s hopeful face fell. Bucky really wished the guy wouldn’t make him feel like such a heel for not being the guy he remembered. 

“He made you carrot cake,” Clint said quietly, and Bucky huffed out a breath, let his face relax into a genuine smile that had Steve perking up again, like a Labrador. 

“Still my favorite,” he said, conciliatory. “Thanks, Steve.”

“There’s other food, too,” he said, and tugged Tony forward a little. “Tony went all out, we’ve got -” Bucky let him ramble on, made sure Marcus got the first slice of cake. 

Once the music was playing, once everyone had a drink in their hand and the conversation was flowing easy, Bucky wasn’t surprised to find Clint at his shoulder. Guy could move like a damn cat, when he wasn’t falling over things. 

“Hey,” he said, and Bucky smiled down at his plate, leaned back a little into Clint’s warmth. 

“Surprise birthday?” he said. “Really?” 

“Tried to tell ‘em,” Clint said, resting his smile against the back of Bucky’s shoulder for a moment. “Wouldn’t listen.” 

“It’s not that I don’t like surprises,” Bucky began, and it kinda felt like an apology in his mouth. 

“I know,” Clint said, cutting him off. He pressed a little kiss where he’d carefully placed his smile, then slid around Bucky so he could go talk to Natasha. 

“Check your back pocket,” he said, as he went. 

Bucky reached automatically for the right, the place he kept his wallet when he left the tower, and felt something small, metal, round and warmed with body heat. His head shot up, and Clint did jazz hands at him from across the room.  _Surprise_. 

 _Seriously?_ His expression asked it without needing to say a word, and Clint grinned, cocked his head, like  _hey, how about it?_  

Like there was anything else he could say. 


	93. Chapter 93

_Bucky’s_  shorts were completely sensible, thanks very much. Tony wolf-whistled him when he skinned out of his cargo shorts, and yeah, maybe they rode a little low, but they were black, they were functional, they even had a little zipped compartment in which to keep his shit. 

(Steve chose to believe he was keeping his keys in there. Bucky didn’t tell him it was a clasp knife.)

Tony had no room to talk, since he was wearing  _gold,_ and Steve’s eyes were just about falling out of his head. At least Bucky had enough fabric to cover the whole of his ass, okay, there were  _standards_. 

(It was a private beach, because of course Tony had a private beach. That wasn’t the  _point_.)

Bucky just held his head high, waded out into the surf, and then ducked down abruptly - up the shoulders, and he was just lucky he wasn’t any deeper - when he saw  _Clint_. 

He was [posing like an asshole](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fi.pinimg.com%2F736x%2F84%2F3a%2F6f%2F843a6f027ef749e09f2cf97fcf3fcf7b--funny-beach-pictures-awkward-pictures.jpg&t=ZDUyNjYyMzllZTIxZjBhNjQ2Y2E3NzE2YWJiNzI5Y2Y2YTlhMWI0ZixQUjc0aGtNZQ%3D%3D&b=t%3ARv7UlJVMfQ9IvwO9DnXTzg&p=https%3A%2F%2Fwinterhawkkisses.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F170715681490%2Fbeach-date-where-clint-wheres-a-hot-but&m=0), trying to make Wanda laugh, his pink and purple swimsuit pulled up almost to his nipples. He was grinning like an idiot, bleached blonder by the sun, and Bucky couldn’t see from this distance but he’d noticed (oh shit, he’d  _noticed_ ) that he had freckles scattered across the bridge of his nose. 

Fuck.  _Fuck_. 

Bucky ducked his head into the water, still cold enough to take care of any - issues - at this time of year. He flipped his hair back away from his face and stood, water streaming down his chest. 

Clint, on shore, tripped over nothing at all. 


	94. Chapter 94

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sentinel!AU

Bucky didn’t stay in the bed for long. Like there was anything they could do that would make him - that would  _force_  him, ‘cos they’d have to force him to be still, even sleeping he wound up wound up inside sheets, coiled and strangling until he kicked them off and woke too cold. 

The place they had brought him had all kinds of shielding, and so long as his senses weren’t spiking - which was easier now they weren’t  _drugging_  him - he could mostly keep track of where and when and who he was. Everything smelled cool and clean, and everything sounded hushed and rubber-edged, and Bucky forged past nurses and ignored doctors and headed for somewhere it was  _warm_. 

There were Guides, too, in this place. You could tell where they were because of the soothing they projected, like being gently and lovingly suffocated with marshmallows. Most of the cool was theirs, too, and some of the clean, and he figured they were trained into it that way. That it’d probably be comforting to most people, people who could stand the goddamn cold. 

Bucky couldn’t stand the goddamn cold, and Bucky was standing by a window seat before he knew it, a blond guy basking in what little there was of the winter sun. Whatever there was he focused it, magnified it, exuded it until Bucky was almost purring. 

“Guide Barton,” someone said, edging around Bucky like he was something dangerous, barely restrained. The man opened his eyes, tropical sea blue, and smiled a little at Bucky before he registered that they weren’t alone. 

“Shit,” he said, “sorry,” and Bucky could practically watch him making the effort towards  _cool_ , towards  _clean_ , towards the same as all the other marshmallow-muffled Guides, and he shuddered and surged forward, pressed his mouth against the Guide’s, opened for his warm tongue. 


	95. Chapter 95

“Mmph?” 

“It is  _Valentine’s day,_  Clint.” 

Clint attempted to unstick his eyelashes, shuffled his legs up so he was almost kneeling, considered shifting his face away from the pillow and then dismissed the idea. 

“Tony?” 

“I can hear the question, why is there a question? Like you don’t live for my dulcet tones in your -” 

“It’s four in the fuckin’ morning, Tony, what’n the hell’re you -” 

“Okay first, it’s ten, and I don’t want to know what you were doing last night unless pictures are likely to surface. Second, it’s  _Valentine’s_  day, and instead of snuggling up to my boo I’ve been called down to security -” 

“How is that my -”

“- because your boyfriend is deeply inappropriate and possibly insane.”

“Boyfriend?” Clint kinda flinched at the word, hard enough that he was scooted forward, further up the bed, hard enough that his skull made noisy contact with the headboard. “Woah, who said boyfriend? I didn’t say boyfriend. Did he say boyfriend?” 

“Oh this is just - this is sad,” Tony said. 

“No, seriously, Tony, did he - ‘cos you shouldn’t just go throwing words like that around, okay?” Mostly Clint had got through this - whatever it was - by not  _thinking_  about it too hard. Like if he handled the thought too much he’d smudge it, somehow screw it up. 

“Get  _down_  here,” Tony said. 

Clint shuffled out of bed. He stepped into his sneakers, figured the reception staff had seen him in weirder get-ups than the shirt and sweatpants he’d slept in, ran a hand through his hair and squeezed some toothpaste onto his tongue. If he had any say in this he was getting straight back into bed when they were through, so that was as much effort as he was willing to put in. 

“ - sorry, Mr Stark,” someone was saying when Clint pushed open the door to internal security; someone fairly important by the sharp creases in their suit. “Obviously cakes don’t usually have  _bloodstains_ , so my crew wanted to be sure -” 

“It’s fine,” Tony said, flapping a hand at them absently. He squinted up at Clint, then gestured at the cake that was sitting in a box on the table. “Seriously?” he said. “This is your type?” 

The cake was in the shape of an anatomical heart, colored like it’d been bled dry with stark red veins scrawled over the surface. Piercing it, at an angle, was one of Clint’s arrows, purple-fletched, and there was dark icing blood spatter covering the baked pillow. 

It was a little terrifying, and a little beautiful, and somehow exactly fuckin’ right. He had no idea what the hell his face was doing, but something in Tony’s expression softened. 

“Maybe you should have the ‘boyfriend’ talk, huh?” he said. 


	96. Chapter 96

Bucky had run this training course seventeen times now. Seven times to get to the top, eight trading back and forth with Barton, twice that he wouldn’t admit to after Natasha came back and soundly kicked their asses. And it’s been the same every time - which is something he should probably talk to Tony about, when they guy’s got a second - with the twists and turns and the laser blasts, only this time there’s an added dimension that he can’t - 

“What the  _fuck_ ,” he says, finally, at the stinging pain on his ass. Five goddamn times, now, and he slams his palm down on the quit button because if someone has infiltrated the goddamn training scenario he needs to know about it, needs to deal with it, even if it’s just a little humiliation. 

He watches the targets reset, the floor adjust itself until it’s level again. Once it’s done it’s pretty clear what he’s looking at - a trail of silver wrappers, distinctive droplet shapes, and what in the good goddamn  _hell…_

 _“_ If this is your way of trying to get back on top, Barton,” he says, “it ain’t gonna work.” 

Another chocolate kiss stings his ass, and Bucky yelps and then scowls deeper. 

“This ain’t what I meant when I told you to kiss my ass,” he says, and he sees just enough of a movement that he catches the next one in the palm of his metal hand. 

 _Be my Valentine_ , the little strip of paper says, and Bucky’s scowl doesn’t diminish any but it maybe turns itself a little pinker. 

“Ever think maybe I  _want_  you on top?” Clint calls. 


	97. Chapter 97

Clint’s - he’s working on it, okay? He’s sitting on a bench in the little room off the quinjet bay, the place that functions as a locker room even though Stark’s too high-class to have something like lockers in it. He’s got his elbows resting on his knees and his hands dangling down between, and he knows there are all these steps between him and the shower - unzipping his vest, unlacing his boots, pulling his shirt over his head, wrestling with the fastening of his pants - and it just kinda feels like an insurmountable obstacle right now. Mostly he just wants to rest his aching goddamn arms, wants to sprawl face down on his bed and  _sleep_. 

He maybe blanks out a little. He notices, eventually, that most of the movement around him has stopped, that the shower’s not hissing, but it still takes him a little longer to blink a couple times and jerk his head up. Breathe in like he’s waking. 

“What?” he says, to the almost-silence of an almost-empty room. 

“Let’s get you set, pal, huh?” Someone says, and then Clint’s looking down in bemusement, in some kinda bewildered disbelief as the  _Winter Soldier_  kneels down at his feet, picks with careful fingers at his double-knotted laces. 

“You don’t gotta -” Clint manages, even his tongue too tired, and Bucky Barnes tilts his head a little and smiles up at him. 

“You’re like Steve,” he says, “the way I remember him. Too goddamn stubborn to quit.” He hauls off one of Clint’s boots and starts in on the other, and Clint’s so goddamn grateful he could cry. He lifts his aching arm just enough that he can rest his forearm on Barnes’ shoulder, curl his hand around the back of his neck, and he means it as  _gratitude_  for all of a hot second. He means it as  _gratitude_  until Bucky stills under it, bites his lower lip. Then it’s something entirely else, something Clint could never be too tired for, and he brushes his thumb against the hard line of Bucky’s jaw and watches him tilt his head up with it. 

And then he’s tilting forward, like exhaustion, like gravity, tilting into Bucky’s space and into his smile, curling his tongue against Bucky’s easy as breathing, easy as falling into dreams. 

 

 


	98. Chapter 98

Clint’s been eating Sal’s pizza for almost as long as Sal’s been making it, so yeah, why not, they can trim the edges so every slice looks like a heart. Rush job, too, so it’s a little sloppy with it and the structural integrity ain’t the best, but that Hawkguy saved Sal from muggers  _and_  gave him some of the start-up capital when he wanted to start up his own place, so whaddaya gonna do? 

And the guys down the hall, Mikhael and Tyrell, they’re fine with Clint borrowing the shitty chairs they sometimes take out to the roof - although not usually in February, when it’s threatening snow. He’s good to them, lets the rent slide when the busking’s not so good, and it’s really the least they can do. 

Mrs Ivanova shoves a crocheted blanket into his arms as he’s passing, tells him his ass is too pretty to be frozen off, and Simone runs down to get him a six-pack from the bodega on the corner while he fishes the GI Joe outta her blocked sink. 

And Bucky laughs fog into the frozen air, huddles as close to Clint as he can get, presses the tip of his frozen nose right into the crook where Clint’s neck meets his shoulder. 

“No I like it,” he insists, licking melted cheese off his fingers and grinning around them, especially when he sees how Clint can’t look away. “Picnics are goddamn romantic.” And then, a little closer, soft into Clint’s ear, “I opened the windows in your apartment, too. Got rid of some of the smoke. And if you’re  _really_  good, tonight, I might even help you clean the oven in the morning.”


	99. Chapter 99

“I know when I’m beaten,” Deadpool says. He’s tugging a little even as he says it, but his suit’s firmly pinned by arrows to the door behind him, through shoulders, under his arms, right at the inner thigh. “I can tell when a love’s not meant to be.” 

“It ain’t personal,” Bucky says, although it is, it really is. 

“Star-crossed lusters,” Deadpool tells him, “cock-blocked by fate and your boyfriend’s throbbing quiver.” 

“Well  _that’s_  a mental image that’s never gonna fade.” 

“Sorry Wade,” Clint says, and he sounds it a little. “I saw him first.” 

“Just tell me if it  _vibrates_ ,” big red says, but he’s signing something different, something longer and more threatening and  _eye-wateringly_  detailed. 

“If I hurt him,” Bucky says, answering his hands rather than the bullshit still spilling out of his mouth, “I’ll let you.” 


	100. Chapter 100

“You know,” Bucky said, idle, picking through the bananas for one just the right level of spotty brown, “if anyone else said that shit about you I’d be kicking their ass.”

Clint didn’t look up. He was fletching the arrows he’d picked up to re-use, fixing and cleaning and prepping his equipment with a level of care that extended nowhere else in his life, or at least never used to. He was a perfectionist, the compulsive kind, the kind where perfection was a weight that held down his limbs, stopped him doing anything if he couldn’t do it right. Thank god for archery, then, and fuck the universe for the days when there was no way for perfection to exist.

“Steve gave you the talk,” Bucky said. It wasn’t a question, not since Bucky’s cornered him, talked about responsibility to his team, talked about how not everyone was loud about what they needed.

The talk went like this: you did good. That was the gist of it. There was other stuff too, duty and expectations and not being too hard on yourself, but the base, the foundation was that even when things went wrong in every way they conceivably could you, Clint, did good.

“Steve gave me the talk,” Clint said, with that little quirk of self-deprecating humour that said he appreciated but didn’t believe, that he was grateful for your efforts but he was still gonna beat himself up about not being smarter, faster, younger, superpowered.

Bucky let out a breath, kept it silent in case it unsettled the load Clint was carrying, and took his overripe banana to sit next to the guy on the couch. He scooted over, more and more, until Clint’s elbow couldn’t move away from his side and he had to discard the arrow on the coffee table and settle, leave it aside for now. He smiled slightly or - more accurate - his mouth relaxed a little and he let it curve a little up, which was his resting expression more and more these days, and was the best kind of mouth to kiss. Only took a very little to ease it open, to let Bucky make a home for himself there, slow and warm and leading nowhere particular, an object lesson in letting yourself, as you are, be enough.


	101. Chapter 101

“What, you’re surprised I’m long-sighted?”

Clint’s voice was defensive but that did nothing to alter his relaxed sprawl, lounging in the sunlight like a cat. Bucky just kinda gaped at him for a second, not sure he had the words.

The glasses weren’t a statement, discreet wire frames and narrow lenses, entirely functional. Clint had missed his ear a little, one side, compressing blond hair that was still sleep messy. He was reading something with an ominous looking window on the front, some kinda interchangeable crime novel, and he held his book open with callused fingers as he stared up at Bucky rather than crack the spine.

Bucky got a stupid, inexplicable wash of protectiveness.

He knew he’d get his ass kicked if he mentioned it.

“Nah, they, they look good,” he said, awkward and too honest, and went to bury his idiot face in the fridge.


	102. Chapter 102

“ _Damn_ , you’re cute.” 

Clint flinched as the woman turned on him, waving her finger in his face, her impassioned speech about street harassment making her cheeks flush and her eyes sparkle. 

“ - know  _better_ ,” she finished, and Bucky couldn’t help but applaud. She gave him a sidelong look, assessing his sincerity for a moment before apparently deciding he passed muster. 

“I’m -” Clint began, hunching himself smaller and trying to look harmless, which he did disconcertingly well for someone so potentially deadly, “I’m really sorry, ma’am,” he said, trying for a sheepish smile, “I was talking to your dog?” 

“Oh man,” she said, and slapped a hand to her forehead, flushing darker. “I am so sorry, I -” 

“No, no,  _I’m_  sorry. The shit you guys have to put up with -” Clint’s eyes widened a little as an idea struck him, and he fumbled in a couple of his pockets before pulling out a signed picture of Natasha. He straightened it out a little, unfolding the corners, before he handed it across. “She would’ve smacked me upside the head if she was here,” he said, “you should definitely have that.”

They waved off her flustered thanks and Clint headed off towards the coffee shop they were aiming for like nothing had even happened. 

“You just - carry those around?” Bucky said, curious. 

“Tasha’s awesome,” Clint said with a shrug. 

“You got the whole roster in those cargo pants?” Bucky asked. “Gonna pull Steve out of your ass?” 

“Not  _everyone_ ,” Clint said, going pink across his cheeks and the tops of his ears. 

“Just you and Tasha, then?”  
  
Clint squinted at him, confused. “Why would I have photos of me?” he asked, and Bucky stared at him for a long moment, then shook his head. 

“You’re seriously a tragedy in human form,” he said, and Clint rolled his eyes and turned to keep walking, almost tripping over himself when Bucky added, “but  _damn_ , you’re cute.”


	103. Chapter 103

Clint licked across his lip where the skin was cracked open, gummy with mostly-dried blood. He tapped the side of his nose - one of those gestures that everyone knew - and it hurt like hell. 

James Barnes - Bucky, to his friends, but Clint wasn’t, but Clint  _didn’t want to be_  - crossed his arms over his football-built chest, blew a strand of hair out of his eyes. He looked outta place in the dust here, behind the equipment sheds where Clint was chewing his lunch with the side of his mouth that wasn’t hurting. He looked a little too clean, a little too real, like the main character in a cartoon to whom everything else was just background, pre-painted, dull. 

Clint snorted out a little laugh at himself, took another careful bite of peanut butter and bread. 

“Might as well tell me,” James said. “You know Steve’ll get it out of you later.” 

“What makes you think I’d tell Steve?” Clint asked, and James snorted dismissively. 

“‘cos Steve’s your favorite,” he said, and Clint couldn’t help laughing, trying not to move his face or his belly with it, groaning a little as the giggles slipped out. James was kinda cutely deluded about what a pain in the ass Steve Rogers was to anyone who wasn’t him; he looked at the little guy like the sun shot out of his mouth instead of all the bitching everyone else heard. “All right, ‘cos Steve’s persistent, then,” James said, and that was a little closer. 

“Steve’s gonna be disappointed,” Clint told him. What was the point in telling? Him and Barney’d tried the running away thing before and it hadn’t - for Clint, anyway, who wasn’t 18 yet - it hadn’t stuck. 

James stepped in a little closer, tugged up his jeans a little so his thighs - fuck, his goddamn  _thighs_  - wouldn’t split ‘em when he dropped into a crouch. He reached out, stopping when Clint flinched automatically, but persisting when Clint made no movement past that. His fingers were gentle, barely there, as they traced the red mark on Clint’s cheekbone that was shaping up to bruise. 

“Maybe  _I_  wanna know,” he said, and there was something hot and dark in the tone of his voice that settled into Clint’s gut and built a fire there. 


	104. Chapter 104

“Well here it is,” Bucky said, spreading his arms with a movie star grin, “last stop, USA.” Maybe Clint was supposed to smile back - he was too busy lookin’ at all the soldiers and their sweethearts, all the different ways they were leaning into each other to say goodbye. He shoved his hands deeper into his pockets and tried not to glare, tried not to watch Bucky looking over his shoulder in case Steve still showed.

What the hell were you supposed to say? He hadn’t known when Barney shipped out, arrogant and overjoyed that he got to goddamn leave, and this was even more impossible.

If he was a dame he could sure as hell let his lips do the talking, in a way no one could hear but everyone could sure as hell understand. Fuck, if he was wishing, why not wish for a working set of ears while he was at it, so he could be boarding right alongside Bucky, bunk up close, say everything he couldn’t in the dark where no one was watching.

He glanced around, then grabbed Bucky by the wrist and hauled him away from the crowd, between towering piles of crates and into a hidden corner.

“Clint - ” he said, half laughing, half apologetic, like he was sorry that Clint was deeper in this than they’d intended. Clint cut him off with his mouth, laying one on him worthy of anyone in the pictures. Bucky was satisfyingly breathless when he pulled away, unfairly beautiful in his uniform, and Clint clasped him hard around the back of his neck and rested their foreheads together so Bucky was all he could see.

“Just - come back,” he said. “Come back, okay?”


	105. Chapter 105

Bucky started at the center of Clint’s sternum, pressing his mouth there and letting the stubble he’d been too lazy to shave for a while now scratch against the lightly flushed skin. Clint groaned when Bucky dabbed his tongue there lightly, then traced a slow line down. His hair was dark against Clint’s chest, too goddamn long since he’d let it see the sun, apparently. 

Clint shuddered abruptly when Bucky reached the top of his belly button, and Bucky grinned against his skin, pressing a careful kiss there before easing his shirt back down, pressing his mouth against cotton and breathing out warmly when he was done. 

Clint’s groan this time was muffled, and Bucky couldn’t help laughing softly when he looked up to see that Clint had tossed an arm over his face, panting lightly with arousal and frustration both. 

“Please?” he said, low and smothered and helpless, and Bucky rubbed his cheek against Clint’s hip like a cat. 

“First date, Barton,” he said, sliding up Clint’s body so that every inch of his chest ran lightly across the denim that covered Clint’s cock, hard against him. “I’m not that kinda girl.” 


	106. Chapter 106

It was snowing harder than ever, the warm orange of the streetlights creating a surreal kinda dissonance of light and white and shadow that was putting Clint on edge, every sense yanked all out of order. He flinched at a shadow and felt his boot skid on a treacherous patch of ice, flinging out an arm in a desperate bid for balance. 

If Clint’s life was the  _romantic_  kind of a comedy, warm strong fingers’d wrap around his wrist, or a solid arm around his waist; he’d catch his balance only to be swept off his feet. Instead he got caught by the scruff of his neck, jacket yanked up painfully under his armpits as his feet flailed like Bambi. 

“I meant to do that,” he said, finally getting his feet under him, shrugging the guy off and taking a couple of almost entirely steady steps away. His boots were old enough that the treads had practically worn away; he had to catch his balance on a dumpster. It felt like kind of an apt metaphor. 

“Sure you did.” 

Clint scowled at the man - he had no business judging, not when he’d barely scraped the surface of the tragedy that was Clint. It wasn’t like he looked particularly together himself. 

He was wearing a heavy army coat that’d seen better days, ripped jeans, battered boots that were worn through over the steel toes. The baseball cap on his head had some logo that Clint didn’t recognize, and dark hair spilled out from underneath it, strands caught on the stubble that was a week old at least. He looked like the wreck of something beautiful, and the dark shine in his eyes looked miserable and desperate and just exactly like Clint’s target demographic. 

Clint shrugged his jacket back in place - thin material that did next to nothing except cling lovingly to the muscles of his arms - and adjusted his lean to emphasize everything he had to offer, for a price. 

The man looked back towards the street, uncertainty thinning out his lips and shadows carving his face in sharp relief. The uneven twist of his body looked odd, and it took Clint a second to see that one of the jacket’s sleeves was tucked into a pocket and had nothing inside of it. 

“Hey,” Clint said, and he offered up a smile, something he never really did to clients, ‘cos his smile made him look like an endearing goofball - not his words - and that mostly wasn’t what he was going for. The little quirk upward at the edge of the guy’s mouth, though, that was all kinds of lovely. 

“Hey,” he repeated, “you’d be doing me a favor,” ‘cos he had never seen protective instinct written so deep into the lines of a person, and Clint’s stock in trade was being just exactly what someone needed, even if it was only for one night. 

Well. That and the sex. 


	107. Chapter 107

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Continuation of previous chapter

“Welp,” Clint said, dropping the baseball into his lap for a second so he could shake out the sting in his palm before tossing it back, “when I chose this career this really wasn’t what I was expecting.”

Bucky rolled his eyes, snatched the ball out of the air, tossed it back.

And he didn’t laugh, or make disparaging comments about the word ‘career’ - or the word ‘chose’ - or say something crude that reminded Clint that yeah, he was paying for this interaction. He just sat there, whipping a baseball across the room at Clint, easy enough with him to have taken off the layers of coat and sweater and henley, easy enough to let his dog tags hang outside of his tank. Which, progress! Hell, last week he’d even *smiled*, okay, it was absolutely not Clint’s fault that he was falling a little bit in love.

“Okay,” Clint said, ducking out of the way of the ball so it slammed, hard, against the wall by the head of the bed. The couple next door slammed the headboard back against the wall on their side, Clint assumed in solidarity. It was not an uncommon noise, the places he hung out. “Okay, so we’ve covered hand-eye coordination, so how about strength training?” He dropped the least subtle wink he could, screwing his face up into it, 'cos sometimes that’d earn him something that resembled a grin. “See how long you can hold yourself up over me, see if you can hold out as long as your wallet does?”

Bucky scowled, folded his arm across his chest, the remains of the other echoing the movement like he forgot he couldn’t cross them.

“You have to remind me I’m paying for this?” he snapped out, and that right there stung like a baseball right to the heart.

Clint got that people saw it as demeaning. Worse, he got that people saw it as demeaning *them*, having to pay for it, having to pay to fuck someone like *him*. He’d just - kinda let himself forget that, once a week. He’d forgotten that he wasn’t supposed to joke about this, that he wasn’t supposed to smile, that he wasn’t supposed to be anything other than what was wanted as long as it was wanted for, and not one dollar longer.

“I’m sorry,” he said, low and sweet and practiced, sliding towards the end of the bed with a soft hiss of cheap nylon covers, talking around the heart in his mouth 'cos he’d forgotten, gotten out of the habit, wasn’t sure he was reading this right. “I’m sorry, baby, let me make it up to you?”

And Bucky spread his thighs so Clint could kneel between them, and he was so careful when he rolled his hips up into his mouth, and he threaded his fingers into Clint’s hair the way he always pushed up into, and that had to balance out the fact that Bucky wouldn’t look him in the eye.


	108. Chapter 108

Clint’s guts are all tangled up like string, his fists clenching rhythmically, his walls just about begging for dents. If he wasn’t such a considerate goddamn neighbour he’d be yelling, right now, and he considers the muffing powers of couch cushions for all of a minute until he realises he knows where they’ve _been_.

He flings himself into pacing instead, open plan of his apartment lending itself to his fury, and there’s a moment before he realises he’s grinning into it, teeth bared like something more violent, because he - because he -

 _Fuck_.

Because he’s got no concerns that Bucky’s not coming back, but that’s only part one of it. The other parts are mostly about how the energy that’s pinballing around his body is angry hot not terror-cold. That he feels like he’s got his feet planted securely enough that he can stomp them, kick out, and nothing will shatter. That the world won’t shiver to pieces around him ‘cos he can’t take back the door he slammed too hard.

It’s an adrenaline rush like laughing, like rollercoasters, and when the door is flung open again hard enough to crack the plaster, Clint leans into it. He shoves Bucky back against the wall and snarls into his face, and then he slides his hands into Bucky’s hair and yanks him forward for a brutal-hot kiss.

Bucky doesn’t melt into it, 'cos Bucky’s worked his way solid over the years. He eases, though, slows down a little, and when Clint pulls away he’s red-lipped and dark-eyed and breathless.

“I’m still mad at you, asshole,” he says, and Clint laughs and pushes his face into Bucky’s shoulder.

“Me too,” he says, teeth drying out against Bucky’s Henley 'cos he can’t stop fucking grinning. “Thanks.”


	109. Chapter 109

“Hey,” a voice says, “wanna see a magic trick?”

Bucky stares up from the bottom of his sixth beer. And while the staring he can manage straight off, the up takes its time. From worn purple converse, over lovingly fitted jeans, past the target straining across the guy’s chest and up to scruffy stubble, blond hair, blue eyes that are somewhere between amused and concerned. Like he’d laugh his ass off if you fell down, but would see you safely into a cab right after.

Bucky decides to like him.

“Sure,” he says. “Impress me.”

“What’ll you give me if i do?” He asks, and there’s a sly sideways slant to his smile.

“Three wishes,” Bucky says, and snorts out a laugh that’s full of secondhand bubbles.

“Sounds like a deal,” the guy says, and steeples one hand against his temple, holds the other out over the fortune cookie that’s been discarded next to Bucky’s plate. “Don’t laugh,” he says sternly, at Bucky’s dismissive snort, “I learnt this from a genuine circus fortune-teller from deepest, darkest Des Moines.”

His closed eyes offer the opportunity for Bucky to look his fill, to catalogue the fading bruises, the dryer-snagged shirt collar, the cheekbones that cut just a little too sharp.

“The greatest fortune awaits at the end of the most difficult path,” he intones, then opens his eyes and grins.

“Those’re the magic words?” Bucky asks, voice dry, and the man grins and hands him the fortune cookie, wrapper crinkling between their fingers. Bucky tears it open, breaks the cookie in half, and reads, “the greatest - what the hell?”

“Impressed?” The guy asks, and Bucky gapes up at him until he bends down, sweeps Bucky’s hair behind his ear and leans in close. “I wish you’d kiss me,” he says, voice low and curling sweet and warm into his ear, and hey. He did promise.


	110. Chapter 110

“Hey  _asshole_ ,” someone yelled, and before Clint could react he found himself pressed up against the wall, the corner of a truly hideous gilt picture frame digging into his shoulder. His head made contact with the wall hard enough to make him wince, and the high-pitched yipping of the goddamn dog was doing nothing for his hangover. 

“Hey, asshole,” he said, friendly-like. It got him slammed back against the wall again, for his trouble. 

The guy doing the slamming was prettier than he had any right to be, long dark hair and intense eyes, plus enough muscles that pushing back against him wasn’t getting Clint too far. 

“You should not own a  _goddamn dog_  if you can’t -” 

“Hey,” Clint attempted to interrupt, “hey, if we could -”

“- take  _care_  of it I swear to god I am gonna call the ASPCA on your ass -” 

“- if we could maybe get out of here before -” 

“- people like you make me -” 

“ - before the  _owner_ comes back, maybe -” 

Clint hadn’t been sure that the guy would hear him over all the yelling, but that managed to shut him up. He squinted at Clint for a second, and Clint squinted right back, wishing he’d snagged his sunglasses before climbing out of his window on this fool’s errand. 

“You don’t live here,” he said, flat. 

“This place looks like Lisa Frank threw up on it,” Clint said, equally unamused. 

“I dunno,” the man said, one side of his mouth relaxing enough to quirk up. “You could be a unicorn guy.” 

“I’m all about the elves,” Clint said absently, because the smile was a little like a punch to the stomach, and it was hard to focus past it. 

“Also the breaking and entering,” a pointed glance was thrown at the window, at the crowbar that still lay across the sill. 

“Right back atcha,” he said, and the man grinned again, really committing to it this time, doing terrible things to Clint’s stomach. 

“Touche.”

“So whaddaya say I take this miserable damn dog and we get the hell out of here?” Clint asked, and the guy looked down at the Pomeranian like he’d forgotten what’d brought them here in the first place. Clint hadn’t forgotten - the bone-dry water dish and empty food dish in the bathroom the pup had been shut in had explained what had had it whining through its barks, piercing through walls and Clint’s temples in about equal measure. 

“You’re assuming I’ll let you keep it?” 

“I’m assuming you live in the building,” Clint said, resituating himself a little more comfortably against the wall and trying on a grin that had the guy’s eyes dropping to his mouth. “And you’re always welcome to visit.” 


	111. Chapter 111

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A sequel to a long ago ficlet

Clint was always the best at hide and go seek. Squeezing himself in and holding himself close, breathing gentle through his nose and biting his lip. Ducking and running, dodging and climbing, Barney boosting him up high to places he’d never be found. Staying motionless and rabbit-hearted and spread-eagled, arms and legs straining with the effort of keeping himself up. Living statue, fatalistic and stoic and accepting as bullets stitched through hardboard and hard-wearing cloth and flesh. 

He learned to hide in plain sight, too. How to use the shadows and light, the lows and the highs, the dark slashes across faces just enough to confuse the eye. He learned to be unobtrusive and bland and American and dumb, to be Iowan in Iowa and a New Yorker in New York, to fit in exactly wherever the hell he was. 

Clint was always the best at hiding from the fame that wanted to stalk them just as soon as Tony Stark got on board. Clint was always the best at hiding just as soon as there was paperwork to be filled in. Clint was always the best at hiding what hurt. 

He didn’t laugh ‘cos his ribs weren’t so solid as they used to be, but he used the hell out of his smile. There was always that moment where hiding didn’t work any more, no matter how hard you tried at it, no matter how tight you curled. And the only thing after that was to be just as visible as life let you just as hard as you could, ‘cos you were never the only one hiding. So Clint grinned and felt slick warmth run down his chin, let them paint his face with bruises as he hid the way he was trying to untangle his hands. 

And then he saw - ‘cos no one hid nearly so good as him - and stopped bothering to react to their questions at all. 

 _10, 9, 8_ - 

One of them yelled something Slavic, and Clint threw his weight back against the chair to try to throw them off - 

_\- 7, 6, 5 -_

\- as he stopped hiding what he was doing, let them see the slackened ropes, grabbed and shoved and almost dislocated - 

-  _4, 3 -_

\- and got his finger broken for his trouble but at least it was on the less important hand and - 

_\- 2 -_

_-_  threw himself sideways just as something exploded, hit his head hard enough that he had to blink stars out of his eyes as -

- _1 -_

\- a familiar face pushed up close to his. Callused fingers cupped his jaw, and a gaze that was checking the size of your pupils could still be loving, Clint was pretty sure. 

“Hey,” Bucky said, “found you,” and Clint let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding, and quit trying to hide  _anything_. 


	112. Chapter 112

Clint’s not sure what the moral of the story is.

Bucky’s still got a smile like a movie star, is the thing. And it’s no secret that he’s forgotten most of what he knew. So maybe he was some kinda Casanova back in the day - although Steve’d have you believe it was all hand-holding and chaste kisses, ‘cos Steve is a romantic like Clint only cleaner - but most of what he’s done he’s forgotten, and most of what he’s forgotten he’s eager to learn.

And some of that works well for Clint, 'cos Clint somehow managed - late night archery, and nightmare commiseration, and the ability to make really goddamn good chilli cheese fries - to get in there first. So Clint teaches him about kissing until you’re dying for it, and then kissing just a little more. He teaches him about controlling your breath and not using your teeth, about the best brands of lube, about the wonders of the goddamn prostate.

But Bucky’s got a smile like a movie star, one of those old-time ones that make girls swoon. And among the things Bucky’s learning is that he’s enthusiastically bisexual, and he’s got a world of curiosity hanging between his legs.

He comes back, and that’s something. Sometimes he comes back smelling like delicate floral body wash, sure, but this is Clint’s bed, and this is where he comes back. And Bucky teaches him some, too, about sleeping pillowed on articulated metal, and waking curled into someone bigger than you, and about pushing down your feelings until you can pretend they’re not there.

'Cos sure, Clint’s kind of easy, that’s never been under debate. It’s just he’s that way not just with his body, and he’s the kind of guy that once got married after a week.

Clint’s not sure what the moral of the story is but he’s certain he’s learned nothing at all.

 

 


	113. Chapter 113

Tony’s got his passwords, even though Clint’s sure he doesn’t even need them. His will’s with the Stark lawyers, and Tony’s got his passwords and strict instructions to delete everything if anything happens to him.

This is a new development; Clint is not an easily embarrassed man. Tony keeps his porn in a folder called corrupt files, ‘cos he’s sadly deluded and thinks he’s funny. Clint’s folder is just called Porn.

But there’s a sub folder of a sub folder, tucked away in in the program files with old saved games of the Sims, and there’s a jpeg labelled with a string of numbers that’re meaningless and therefore stupidly hard to search, and opening it doesn’t get you much more than the Winter Soldier’s smiling face.

He’s not looking at the camera. He’s likely not even noticed the camera’s there, 'cos his smile is soft and easy and gentle.

It’s nothing important. A moment someone wanted to keep.

The only thing incriminating about it is how carefully it’s been hid.


	114. Chapter 114

There’s this mood that hits on summer days, on the right side of a couple beers, in the golden hour where afternoon hits evening and the sun paints everything happy with thick amber strokes. Where you leave a bar and you can still walk straight but you’re grinning a little at the knowledge that you might not.

It’s a mood where everything is cusps. Where your smile is on the cusp of laughter, and day’s on the cusp of over, and you’re just on the cusp of drunk… and somehow the world - yeah, even in New York, even in Bed-Stuy - is whole new shapes and flavours of beautiful. Like you’ve stumbled over some pocket universe that’s two steps left of where you’re used to, and the little flowers growing out of the cracks in the sidewalk have just never been so blue.

So yeah, if you’re asking, Clint thinks Bucky’s kisses feel a little like summer drinking. And the way he tells it make Bucky think that maybe summer drinking is a little like love.


	115. Chapter 115

Bucky wouldn’t believe it.

Everyone else - eventually - well, there wasn’t much room for doubt. But what little room there was, whatever hairline cracks in the story, barely rusted links in the chain of reasoning, Bucky made a home for himself there. There, and on the roof of the tower, and in an apartment in Bed-Stuy, and between purple sheets almost faded to gray with the washing.

Self soothing, it’s called, that thing you do where you rock back and forth and try to recreate a time when someone loved you. That wasn’t what Bucky was doing; Bucky was trying to jar his goddamn lungs loose so he could breathe again.

Every breath was thin and sharp and ice-cold and whistling and every goddamn thing that was unpleasant in this world, unpleasant and unnecessary and better done without. Maybe it’d be easier if he wasn’t huddled tight under blankets, if everything didn’t smell like -

There was a service, apparently. Bucky didn’t go. Steve said a few words. Natasha, low-voiced, read a poem that was made beautiful by the emotion her words carried until people realised it was the radio jingle for Sal’s pizza.

He’d want laughter, though. If he was - if he -

Someone had tied something tight around Bucky’s chest, just beneath his heart.

And then. And then, somehow, Thor. And somehow - it was harder to think logically when you couldn’t breathe, that was how these things worked - Loki, of Asgard, burdened with glorious purple,

“Because,” he said, and Bucky’s feet barely touched the floor -

“- it suits me -” propelled backwards, before anyone else could move or react or even -

“- I’m told.” - b _reathe_.

“By who?” Bucky snarled, and Loki forced a sneer into it even with Bucky’s arm like a bar across his throat.

“By _whom_.”

And then, from the doorway, on a breath, on a beautiful impossible breath,

“By me.”

 

 


	116. Chapter 116

So sue him, Clint gets horny for hotels.

He’s not sure what it is about ‘em - when you actually think about it in any depth, they’re kind of unsanitary. But there’s just something about… anonymity, and how everything’s fleeting, and sometimes there’s even a little chocolate on the pillow…

Whatever. Some of the best sex Clint’s had has been in hotels. He stands by it.

Only this time, this weird sort of press tour, there’s Tony. And Tony’s the kind of man that’ll book out a whole floor, which woulda been great in the old days of models and champagne, but now - well, there’s champagne at least, but him and Pepper are getting an early night. And Steve, he’s secretly grandpa, and Bruce wears grandpa like it’s going out of style. Itty bitty Maximoff is too young to drink, Vision’s a robot, Sam and Tasha weren’t dumb enough to tag along…

Clint snags one of the champagne bottles and grumbles along to his room.

Only, once he gets there, he remembers the other unaccounted for.

Bucky Barnes is leaning against his door, arms folded over his chest, one foot propped up against the fancy wood behind him. His hair’s tucked behind one ear, and on the other side it’s falling across his face, and there’s something a little bit high school, a little bit '90s, that combined with the hotel gets Clint hard so fast he’s reeling.

“Hey,” he croaks, awkward, and Bucky’s eyes drop to the champagne in his hand and he grins.

“Hey, Barton, I knew I could count on - ”

It’s a soft little noise he makes, inquisitive, and Clint feels his face filling with just about all the blood his dick can spare.

“Hotels,” he blurts, loud and abrupt. “I, er, I’ve got a thing for -”

Bucky pushes off the door and rocks forward, right into his space, and Clint completely fails at biting down a whimper. Bucky grins, that shy edge on his knowing smile that’s like high school and hotel strangers.

“*Just* hotels?” He asks, all innocence, and Clint gives it up, gives everything up, groaning into Bucky’s mouth.

 

 


	117. Chapter 117

“-eve, too, but everyone else seems okay. Tony’s got people doing things with test tubes, who - oh, hey!”

Clint’s voice, already soft and low, like the lighting, like the blankets tucked carefully no higher than his hips, gets a little softer and a lot happier when he notices Bucky is awake. His hand, which’d stilled - and maybe that was what had stirred him out of his half-doze - resumes the gentle circles over his stomach that don’t do much good.

Besides reminding Bucky that Clint cares enough to stay up when he’s sleeping, cares enough to prop himself a little uncomfortably against the wall so Bucky can stay curled in his lap. Not much.

“Hey,” Bucky croaks, and neither his throat nor his stomach muscles have recovered from his earlier reaction to whatever the hell that gas had been, apparently. Clint winces in sympathy and offers him a water bottle with a straw that’s only just cool, now, ‘cos he’s been napping long enough that the ice has all melted, 'cos Clint hasn’t moved an inch.

Bucky carefully shifts his weight, judges himself just about recovered enough that he can inch himself up the bed and curl tighter into him, letting Clint’s shirt absorb the fever sweat and the words he’s not quite ready to let Clint hear.

Saying them - meaning them - will have to do.


	118. Chapter 118

Bucky’s woken out of a deep sleep by tuneless singing, and he smiles into his pillow for all of the moment it takes him to realise that it ain’t the right *kind* of tuneless.

“No,” he says, flat and unequivocal, and pegs his pillow at the door hard enough to slam it in Steve’s face. The offended little noise that Steve makes is honestly a bonus.

He waits longer than usual to go for his morning run, but there’s a sweet spot between the business joggers and the yoga moms that is swiftly disappearing, so he compromises and keeps his phone on him, those uncomfortable earphone things shoved in deep. His phone, some days, is honestly brighter than he is, and when it starts playing one of those bands that always brings with it dancing in the kitchen - the Crash? - he has no idea how to turn it off. Someone stops him just inside the park gates, when he’s almost goddamn done, and asks him to sign something. They grin wide at him, saying something that he gestures at the earphones and pretends not to hear.

The apartments full of the smells of good cooking, time he gets home, and that only ever means one thing. Bucky gets rid of the text notifications on his phone without looking at a single one of ‘em - save to scan the names and feel disappointed every time - and ducks his head while he hustles through to his room.

“Hey, Barnes,” Sam calls through from the kitchen, and Bucky holds up a hand to cut him off at the 'happ-’

He feels a little bad about it, too, 'cos it’s been way too long since he stopped being an asshole just because and started to actually like the guy, and he appreciates the thought but - not right now.

Once he’s done in the shower there’s not much stopping him getting straight back into sweats and crawling into bed. Unspecified sort of aching - he’s probably getting sick. That’s gotta be it. He reaches out to snag his phone when it rattles against the bedside cabinet, and considers not answering for all of the second it takes to consider how much she will bitch at him if he does.

“Katie-Kate,” he says.

“Y'know,” she says, “I’m gonna let that go this one time, but only because it’s your -”

“No,” he says, reflexive, and she lets out a sigh.

“He meant to,” she says, and it’s in tones of sympathy that mean that whatever he meant, he’s not *gonna*, and Bucky feels kind of like an asshole for resenting it. “He had plans,” Kate tells him, “and they were epic and multi-faceted, and I swear Bucky the universe hates him, 'cos this time last week I’d say he’d die trying to wish you -”

“Yeah,” he says, “well,” and figures that today of all days he can get away with hanging up.

When it’s been quiet long enough he goes out to snag a plate of whatever smells so good and drags it back to his lair, so he’s got a mouthful of something spicy and delicious when his phone rings again. It’s not a number he recognises, so he answers warily, and almost chokes at the familiar, tired, poorly connected voice.

“I am so so sorry, Buck.”

“*Clint*.” And he feels a little, embarrassingly, inexplicably, like crying. So he doesn’t say anything, and there’s silence except for their breathing, the weird doubled effect of a siren wherever Clint is and another, muffled, wailing through his window.

“I said I’d be there,” Clint says, and he sounds exhausted, worn down to the bone, “and I worked so hard to keep the goddamn promise -”

“Nobody’s said it yet so it doesn’t count,” Bucky says. “It’s cool, we’ll pick a day, I wanted you to be the first person to say -”

He jerks his head up as the window rattles against the frame, and someone tumbles through.

“Happy birthday, sweetheart,” Clint says.


	119. Chapter 119

Clint’s solution to everything is to work harder.

Admittedly you wouldn’t think it to look at him. Especially not when he’s crashed out on the couch with pizza crumbs scattered over his chest, Dog Cops on the TV and holes in both his socks.

Clint just knows what he’s good for, is all, and sometimes the huge reality of trying, of making an effort, is heavy and wide and thick enough that it exhausts him just to exist in the universe alongside it. He does the things he can do and shies away from the things he can’t, ‘cos failing - ironic, considering how very much a part of his life it is - is Just Not an Option.

Sometimes Bucky bears witness, silent in the corner and dark-eyed and, he’s not gonna lie, a little turned on.

And sometimes Bucky’s gotta drag him out of there, pry the bow out of crab-curled hands and haul him to a couch where they can curl into each other, where Clint can use Bucky’s shoulders to help him carry the weight of the world, the weight of the worthless, can let Bucky bear the soft noises of pain that he mostly doesn’t let anyone hear.

Bucky’s stockpiling liniments now. So as far as Clint makes it - the common areas, the couch, the bathroom, the bed - Bucky can care without going out of sight, without Clint being able to invent exasperation for him or annoyance or the frustration that Clint’s convinced he wears where Clint can’t see. Bucky stays where Clint can see him and stays where Clint can need him, he can, it’s okay, okay?

The rhythm of massaging along tendons tight like bow-strings, over calluses and blisters, over the worn-through beauty of Clint’s curled hands, is a heartbeat and like breathing and an act of devotion, that simple and that necessary.


	120. Chapter 120

“…amirite?”

“No.”

The voice cut through the group’s laughter like a knife through butter, sharpened by the sheer weight of certainty in it. Rick looked up, startled, not used to being contradicted - and certainly not by some shabby asshole who wouldn’t know class if it drove over him in a Ferrari. Jesus, his sneakers weren’t even real Converse.

“Nobody asked you, pal,” he said, just a low level of threat there, just reminding people who’s boss.

“Bro, I’m deaf,” the guy says, gesturing towards a pair of purple hearing aids, “and I still had to listen to every goddamn word you had to say. The whole bar is part of this conversation by default.”

Rick folds his arms across his chest and leans back in his chair, mouth twisting into a smirk. He can feel everyone’s eyes on him, and he loves it.

“Okay, I’m listening,” he says. “What exactly was wrong about what I said?”

The guy pinches the bridge of his nose. He’s got a band-aid across it, which is unsurprising - he looks like the kinda loser that’s been getting beat up in parking lots since junior high.

“I would need a PowerPoint presentation to fully outline your wrong,” he says, “but much as I love the slide transitions I’m just gonna give you the highlights.”

Rick’s mouth opens, ready to cut in, but the guy keeps talking before he can.

“Using the word girls is pretty demeaning to start,” he says, “unless you’re talking about teenagers in which case a) you’re still wrong, ‘cos teenage girls are the best possible thing that could happen to our future and b) you’re gonna get arrested and I will personally really enjoy hearing about your experiences in prison.”

Rick’s on his feet before he knows it, fists clenched. Opposite side of the bar a chair drags across the floor and a guy stands up. Unlike the scruffy blond in front of him, this guy’s dark and dangerous, somehow carrying shadows with him.

“What,” Rick spits, “you’re gonna run your mouth and then get your boyfriend to take on what your limp fuckin’ wrists can’t handle?”

“Hell no,” the other guy says, taking a couple steps forward, tucking his hair behind his ear and leaning his crossed arms on the bar, “his boyfriend’s just standing up to get a better view.”

 

 


	121. Chapter 121

Clint woke feeling sick, and sore all over, and like something had tried to twist off his head, but he also woke up to Bucky’s hand curled around his jaw and Bucky’s hair forming a curtain between him and the world so, hell, it could be worse.

“Hey,” Bucky said, stupid-fond and quiet, even with whatever chaos was thundering just over there. “Hey, there he is, my - no, sweetheart, eyes up here.”

Clint hadn’t been keen on turning his head anyway, ‘cos either the world was shifting oddly or his brain was, and it was a little worrying actually that he genuinely couldn’t tell which. He looked up, instead. Looked up into Bucky’s face, at the places he’d somehow - even with the life he’d had - developed a fine webbing of laugh lines that Clint wanted to watch deepen over time.

“Don’t feel so good,” he managed, and Bucky’s face did something odd and brief and kind of awful, and he looked at Clint’s forehead and carefully smoothed the hair there, tugged it so gently away from whatever it was sticking to up there.

“I know,” he said, “I know, Clint, but you’re gonna get better, okay? You’re gonna make it through this and that’s what’s important.”

“'K,” Clint said agreeably, and he reached his hand up - that much he could manage, hurt like all fuck but hands didn’t get dizzy - to cup Bucky’s jaw in return.

Something crashed, something else howled, and Clint’s eyes flicked that way before Bucky turned his face into Clint’s palm and hid a kiss there.

“Yeah,” he said, “look at me, okay? You just got Tony’s face that way, and his face is stupid.”

Clint couldn’t help but laugh a little at that, and it hurt in ways that made it even clearer how necessary it was, too.

“You’re most important,” he said, wobbling back a few steps in the conversation, and Bucky laughed and his teeth were all shiny and his eyes were, too.

“Y'know,” he said, and whatever the fuck that noise was it was getting bigger and wider and deeper and more awful, “I’m pretty sure that has never been more true.”

He leaned in then, kissed Clint the kind of soft and careful that his head demanded; he kissed Clint the kind of long and perfect that his heart would always need.

And then he pulled away, and Clint saw the rip that ran right through the goddamn sky and the alie- the monst- the *things* that were trying to crawl their way out of it.

“What,” he said. “What the fuck is - what is *that*?”

“One way ticket, pretty sure,” Bucky said, and then he kissed Clint again, on the mouth and the cheekbone and the temple and the forehead, like he was forcing himself to but still couldn’t quite pull away.

“But it’s okay,” he said, and his smile was nothing and everything like the awful gaping hole in reality that Clint didn’t want to look at straight on. “I’m gonna close the door behind me,” Bucky said.

 

*

 

Strange is gray and gasping, and Bucky’s not gonna even pretend like he knows what the guy did but it was enough, at least, to push all the tentacles back through for a moment.

There’s a spar of earth and rock that’s somehow lined up with one corner of the tear in reality, a little hooked like it’s got a claw caught in there; it’s the best place to go through to the other side, the only place the portal - they keep calling it a portal, like that ain’t a gateway with neat edges - can be closed from. There’s science to it, maybe some kinda logic behind Tony’s robo-armour and some kid in a red and blue suit, but all Bucky knows is that the device they made him fits in his knapsack but is heavy enough that he needs to strap it across his chest.

The warmth leaning against his arm makes it a little easier to carry, and a little bit harder to bear.

“So we’re doing this?” Steve asks, because of course the punk didn’t listen when everyone told him not to go, when they told him all the ways he was needed. Steve has never known what was best for him; that was always Bucky’s job.

“Steve,” he says, but Steve just squares his jaw and stands firm.

“One way ticket,” he says. “You gotta know I’m coming with you.”

“I know,” Bucky says, and spins around with all the strength of desperation behind the weight of his metal fist, unstoppable force and an object that’s gonna have to move, just this once, that’s stubborn as hell but surprised enough for Bucky’s punch to put him on his back.

“Sorry pal,” Bucky says, and he squares his shoulders to settle the weight of the world a little better across them. “This here’s the end of the line.”


	122. Chapter 122

Clint smiled against the microphone, his huffed out laugh booming a little in the speakers.

“This is a song by the late, great Mr Johnny Cash,” he said, voice low and intimate in the ear of half a hundred people, drawling a little more than he ever let himself on the job. A couple of people cheered, one or two girls even whistled at him, and Bucky hid his grin inside the mouth of his beer bottle ‘cos how in hell was this even his life?

Captain America was propping up the bar, getting his horrifically awful flirt on with a nice young lady that Tony Stark was busy running a background check on. The CEO of Stark Industries - which had been a thing even in Bucky’s day - was drinking brightly coloured cocktails In a booth with the legendary Black Widow. And Bucky, the feared goddamn Winter Soldier, the man that baby assassins had nightmares about, was sitting in a tiny bar wearing his boyfriend’s purple shirt with a dog drooling slicks across his feet.

It was - ridiculous. Impossible. Like something out of a fairytale, which he guessed explained the happily ever after.


	123. Chapter 123

Bucky leans against the door frame, red sparks dancing lazily across his fingers and a smirk resting lightly on his lips. Shit, how they’d  _yelled_. 

No one ever expects him, which is just goddamn stupid considering he’s who they come looking for. Or - maybe not him, but the legend that’s built slowly up around him, the lake, the falling-down cabin he’s living in. They’ll never stop coming, either, not until someone can remember that he’s really not that goddamn interesting, not up close. 

See, Bucky pissed off this witch that - 

No. 

More like, Bucky’s got a protective instinct that just doesn’t quit, and - 

No. 

Steve, really. It all came down to Steve. 

Steve and a witch and the choice that she offered him, and how Bucky took on the decision instead. How Steve - just like he’d planned it - had walked out and shoved his face right into the grass and kept breathing just fine. How Bucky had meant to follow him out, had wanted to, right to his back teeth, but had been held back by old fingers curling gently into his sleeve. 

He’d had to think hard about the choice. It was cruelty in every direction, cutting both ways, but he’d decided in the end that he’d keep  _his_  memories, let everyone else forget  _him._ He’d take on the cabin now she was done with it, and learn from her books and her notes and her crabby birds, and maybe - when the idiots came looking, when they had a reason - maybe he could help a little. Even if they wouldn’t remember it. 

He’s experimenting with curse-breakers, when it happens. Idle thought, never more than idle, in case the curse can just  _tell,_ but he’d like to talk to Steve again. Like, maybe, someone to call him by his name. So he’s experimenting, studying up, muttering half-formed barely-words and waving his hand, until he knocks something sideways and his red sparks are drowned in blue powder, and sparkly and purple are just not his  _look_. 

Bucky chokes, sputters, opens every goddamn window in the cabin. He’s hanging over the railing on the back porch, trying to catch his breath, when a beautiful naked guy strolls out of his cabin, streaked liberally with purple powder and grinning like he’s missing something upstairs. 

“Hey,” he says, casual, like he’s not flashing Mother Nature and all her arboreal children all the (many) inches that god gave him. 

“Who the fuck,” Bucky says, slow and considering so the guy knows he  _means_  it, “are you?” 

“I’m your familiar,” the guy says. “Rescue, life debt, there’s a set of rules to it.” 

Bucky squints at him sideways, wonders what the hell he’s thinking when he figures the tuft of hair at the back of the guy’s head looks kinda like - 

“You’re the  _hawk?”_ Bucky squawks. Shit, he’d pulled him out of a  _snare_. 

“I’m your familiar,” the guy repeats stubbornly, jaw firming up like he ain’t taking no. “Also, Clint,” he says. 


	124. Chapter 124

Bucky hears the sirens from a few blocks away, but he doesn’t respond. It’s date night. He knows he’s going the right way.

Maybe he should worry that romantic lighting, for him, flashes blue and red. Maybe his heart shouldn’t flutter thump at the cops interrogating a guy restrained with candy-box ribbon. It’s possible that paramedics tending to a man covered in vase-fragments and broken-stemmed roses isn’t anyone else’s romantic ideal.

The tenants of Clint’s building appear to be having some kinda street party while they wait for the firefighters to clear. Bucky makes his way over to Simone, grinning sheepishly at the expression on her face as she watches her kids sneak illicit sugar.

“Sorry,” he says, and she shrugs.

“It’s date night.”

Clint’d never credit how well he’s loved, ‘cos he takes forgiveness for pity rather than the vast and warm affection it really is.

Speaking of.

The crowd doesn’t part, exactly, like serendipity and romantic films. It’s more that people don’t get in Bucky’s way when he’s looking for Clint, for his still-smouldering wreck of a boyfriend who’s swigging out of a halfway decent bottle of wine as a paramedic fixes up his head.

Bucky ducks in to kiss Clint’s forehead, the corner-caught feel of band-aid almost as familiar as his skin.

“Quit tryin’ to romance me,” he says.

“'Cos I’m a danger to myself and others?” Clint says, sing-song, familiar refrain.

“'Cos you already won me, idiot,” Bucky tells him. “'Cos I couldn’t be more yours.”


	125. Chapter 125

The whole package was just too goddamn much for Bucky. The overalls tied at the waist, the tight white shirt with careless grease fingerprints, the streak of oil across his cheek. His arms were the kind of obscene that had you wondering if he could hold you up against a wall; his little smirk and sidelong glances said he was wonderin’ too.

The patch on his overalls said ‘jimmy’ but he’d introduced himself as Clint, and Bucky found himself drifting closer as he bent himself over the engine of Bucky’s truck, pulled in like magnetism, like gravity, like the laws of physics were specifically designed to get him laid.

“Hey,” Clint halfway called, “you couldn’t get me - “ and then he turned his head and bit his lip at how close Bucky was, gave him a look under lowered eyelashes but still sounded a little awkwardly shy around the warm way he said, “hey.”

“Hey,” Bucky said, smooth as all hell, and leaned in when Clint couldn’t seem to help tipping his chin for him, laid his half-open mouth gently over Clint’s and took every advantage he could.

He hadn’t expected the lazy heat of Clint’s tongue when he’d followed the awkward diversion away from a freeway pileup, hadn’t expected he’d uncurl his stiff fingers from around his steering wheel only to curl them into Clint’s sweat-rumpled hair. He couldn’t regret it though, not for anything, not even when Clint blinked open lust-dark eyes and bit his plumped lower lip.

“So, confession,” he says, “you’re frighteningly hot,” like that’s news, and Bucky figures if he’s gonna spout the obvious he only half has to listen, and starts nibbling down his neck. Clint curves into it, even as he keeps, sheepish, talking.

“Also I kinda barely work here,” Clint says, but Bucky cares more about the little noise that slips out after, “and also I may have made your engine worse.”

 

 


	126. Chapter 126

“Shit.”

Clint’s voice was hoarse, but Bucky could only imagine what expression the gentle incredulity translated to. He clenched his fists a little, a pulsing pressure that was helping to keep him in his own body, nothing that Clint would worry about but something he needed, desperately. He wasn’t sure if he liked this; he wasn’t sure if anything about this could be covered by a word as simple as like.

Clint’s fingers brushed against Bucky’s thigh. Gentle, barely there, getting more hair than skin, but it still made Bucky’s mouth fall open on a breath that was half way to a groan. He shifted, pulled against the cuffs the barest amount, chose not to wrap his legs around Clint and pull him in closer; they’d only had one pair of cuffs but he figured staying still was implied.

“You’re okay?” Clint asked, and Bucky shifted blindly to face him, the elastic that held the blindfold in place catching and tugging at his hair the way Clint’s calluses did, sometimes, when they kissed.

“Sweetheart,” Bucky said, hoarse and low and far more wrecked than he had any business being, this soon, “I’m perfect.”

Clint stuttered out something that pretended it was steady enough to be a laugh, more air than sound.

“Pretty sure that’s my line,” he said, and shifted so he was straddling Bucky, weight in none of the good places, but warmth resting on him like bliss. “I can’t believe,” he murmured, so soft, hand cupping Bucky’s cheek, “I can’t believe you’re trusting me to do this.”

Bucky twisted himself up, let his arms pull behind him uncomfortably so he could shove an awkward unseeing kiss at Clint’s mouth.

“You have no idea how much it fuckin’ means that I can.”

 

 


	127. Chapter 127

“Could you repeat that?” 

The voice came from somewhere in the back of whatever the hell tangle of superheroes they’d managed to assemble, fell beautifully into the silence that was left after Big Purple had finished his speech entitled I’m Gonna Kill Ya (and Your Little World Too).

“Guy says he’s gonna kill us,” Bucky called, turning his back to the practically-a-demi-god, and flicking his hair out of his eyes so he could better scan the crowd for Clint. 

“Um,” said the SpiderBoy, holding up a hand like he’d forgotten he wasn’t in class, “I’m against that, if anyone’s taking a poll.” 

“I’m pretty sure there’s at least three of you I’ve got dibs on,” Tasha put in, and Deadpool - who the hell had invited  _Deadpool_? - raised his hand too. 

“Ooh, me,” he called, “do me!” 

“There are,” she said, “so  _very many_  levels of no -” 

“I’d better not be one of those people,” Tony said, the weird mechanical mangling of his voice still not managing to hide that he was amused, a little, and Steve was smiling into his beard. 

“You  _are_  the list, Tony,” Sam said, and Tony made this hilarious little offended noise that set T’Challa smiling, and fuck it, if Bucky was gonna go out he was gonna go out grinning with a bunch of crazy people fighting by his side. 

“No seriously,” a voice said from right behind him, “what did he say?”

Bucky turned and almost swallowed his tongue. 

“Holy shit, Barton,” he said, “that hair is hot as fuck.” 

“Huh,” Clint said, “not what I was expecting, but I guess they’re as good as any words to end the world on.” 


	128. Chapter 128

The door slammed open, pulled by a frantic looking blond with the build of an Olympic athlete and the wild eyes of someone on day release.

“Hey,” he said, “hands,” and hauled Bucky inside, picking up a casserole dish and handing it over before he carefully unbuckled a small indeterminately gendered kid from a stroller and draped it over his shoulder, where it appeared to be on a mission to coat his shoulder in tears and snot.

“Hey there small thing,” the guy said, voice carefully modulated for maximum soothe. “We’re just gonna stop off in the kitchen so there’s less chance of Mrs Kowalski’s cabbage rolls gaining sentience and eating you, and then we can put you to bed, huh?”

A renewed bout of wailing had the guy wincing, reaching up to adjust something behind his ear.

“I know, baby, I know,” he gentled, heading for the kitchen with Bucky wandering along amiably after. “Life is so goddamn hard when you’re seven months old. Everyone’s bigger than you and nothing makes sense.” He pressed a kiss to fine blond hair and let out a huff of breath. “If it’s any consolation,” he said, “things are pretty much the same when you get to my age, only you also have to pay bills.”

Bucky snorted quietly, and the blond flashed him a tired yet impossibly stunning smile. He nodded to the counter and headed off to the bedroom. Bucky took the opportunity of his absence to snoop around a little, found nothing more incriminating than a six-pack where vegetables ought to be.

“Hey.”

The man sounded hoarser when he wasn’t speaking to his kid. He scratched at the side of his face, nails rasping against stubbled skin.

“Sorry about that. I didn’t mean to press you into service. It’s just been -“ he gestured, helpless.

“A little overwhelming?” Bucky asked.

“To say the least. Sorry. You wanted me for something? What, a delivery?”

“You’re Clint Barton, right?”

“Yeah,” Clint said. He pulled the lid off the casserole dish and sniffed it warily. “That’s me.”

“Yeah,” Bucky said, “so I’m here to kill you, but I gotta say I’m changing my mind.”


	129. Chapter 129

Clint found Bucky on the roof, further up than the helipad, above the gravelled and landscaped pretence that they were anywhere but New York, right up in the unsightly clutter of elevator winches and air conditioning vents.

Clint liked it up here, too.

It was the closest to dark the city ever got, the sky stained orange over the blue and only a few of the most aggressive stars making themselves known. Clint had a strange longing, sudden and *hard*, for the farm where he’d done a little of his growing up. Had the strangest certainty that Bucky’d like it there.

Bucky’s shoulders tightened when Clint settled down by him, close enough to talk but not to touch.

“Y’know,” he said, “last time I had housemates I was allowed to kill them.”

Clint scooted closer and rolled to his knees, leaned his forehead against the stupidly vulnerable place where the spine met the skull. This was Tony’s problem, of course - trying to expect rational from a man who’d never been permitted any.

“Time before that,” he went on, the hollow spots hiding under his voice achingly clear, “Steve says I’d’ve died for them.”

Clint hummed softly, tilted his head up so he could brush his lips against the nape of his neck.

(He’d shot a man there once. In Reno. Hadn’t stuck around to watch him die.)

“Before that I’m pretty sure it was Steve,” he said, relaxing back a little, trusting himself to Clint’s strength. “So-“

“Little of both?” Clint asked, and Bucky adjusted so he was leaning back against Clint’s shoulder.

“Little of both, I imagine,” he said, with a grin.

“Well if that’s your style,” Clint said, heart in his mouth, “I’ve got a little place in Bed-Stuy that’s just about big enough for two.”

“I can’t -“ Bucky stiffened up again, a little, and Clint brought a hand up so he could thread fingers through Bucky’s hair. “I could kill you,” Bucky ground out. “You can’t trust me.”

“Probably the nicest death I got coming my way,” Clint told him, flippant. “Besides, I’m hardy. Like a cockroach.”

“That’s where your mind goes when you talk about your place,” Bucky said, flat, as he nudged his head against Clint’s fingers like a cat.

“Am I selling it?” Clint said. Then, strangely earnest, “‘cos I want to. I want you there. I can’t -“ too honest, the crack in his voice letting the truth shine through, “can’t think of anything better than coming home to you.”


	130. Chapter 130

The circus was always bigger on the inside. Like, Clint gets the idea of the TARDIS on a visceral level.

The circus was impossible to fit into your head, impossible to fit into a tent, every time - even when you were the one that’d helped drape the canvas there - somehow a world of magic. Something lived in the circus, something was born there, and Clint had always somehow been reborn inside it. No night was the same ‘cos no night could exist alongside other nights; the world had to reinvent itself anew with every first ticket sold.

It was like fairyland. The proper one, the one Disney hadn’t touched. The one where you were so swept up in the Magic that it didn’t matter if you couldn’t get anything to eat. Didn’t matter what you had to do to stay there.

When the circus left, though.

(When the circus left him behind.)

All that was left was a circle of dried grass that was never as big as your soul insisted it had to fuckin’ be. How could it - how could -

What world could possibly have existed in that yellowed space, so small?

The strangest space, though, the most impossible, was hauling yourself off the trucks, outta the trailers, blinking in the cold spring half-light of too early. The strangest space was looking at the field and marking out the summoning circle, knowing that this here was going to be the portal into something that couldn’t exist without your blood sweat and splinters, your greasepaint and spandex and showman’s grin.

That impossible blending of everyday and world-creating magic, that skeletal soon-to-tent against the soon-to-sky -

That was how Clint felt, the first time that Bucky smiled.

 

 


	131. Chapter 131

“Hey,” Clint said, white teeth gleaming against his smoke-blackened skin, sideburn gory from a still-bleeding head wound. “Hey, I’m here to rescue you.” 

“Hey,” Bucky said, woozy, voice ragged from coughing. “Do all firefighters have name badges?”

Bucky was being generous, assuming it was ‘Clint’, ‘cos the L and the I were sharing pretty close quarters. Alongside the name badge he had a ragged-edged sticker that informed the world that he had been GOOD at tidying up, and a ‘6 years’ birthday badge that Bucky was reasonably certain was lying. 

“Not all firefighters,” Clint said, quickly assessing the physical damage - nothing protruding, nothing removed - before crouching down at Bucky’s side, “are as awesome as me.” 

He had a Hello Kitty decal on the side of his helmet. Someone had given it Sharpie fangs. 

That’s what Bucky chose to focus on. Clint hauled Bucky’s arm around his neck, did some kinda gymnastic manoeuvre that hurt like ball lightning and ended with Bucky draped, somehow, over his shoulders. 

“What the fuck,” Bucky slurred out, possibly talking to Hello Kitty, who, at this point, could tell? “Stronger ‘n you look.” 

“I,” Clint said, moving fast and careful, “am a goddamn superhero.” He jinked sideways away from something in a room that crashed, loud and sustained. 

“Hope you’re not calling me Lois Lane,” Bucky said; thankfully he didn’t have much time to deal with the embarrassment, ‘cos Clint moved wrong, shifted his weight somehow in a way that had things inside of Bucky grinding together, and the pain was enough to make him pass out. 

 

Everything was white and clean when Bucky woke up, obnoxiously cheerful flowers on the curtain pulled around his bed. On the bedside table, too, a gas station posy, shedding petals onto the sheets. 

The little card had a G.I.Joe congratulating him for successfully making it to 6. 

 _Lois Lane could kick your ass,_  it said, right above the phone number that made Bucky’s face hurt from grinning. 


	132. Chapter 132

Rain was splattering against the windows. It was the sort of night that could’ve held thunder, but that wasn’t what woke him, not with his ears. He couldn’t work it out for a moment, and then the bed shifted just a little, sudden movement quickly stilled. 

“Buck?” 

His voice sounded like the memory of being underwater. Bucky’s response, whatever it was, was short and accompanied with the quick brush of fingers through his hair; intended to soothe, maybe, but too distracted to do it. 

Clint reached for the bedside table, tangled his fingers in flexible plastic and hooked one into his ear. Caught a glimpse of a phone screen, lit up with notifications from all the Instapeople who liked his dog, and winced at how low the big white numbers were, there. 

He rubbed his eyes and most of his face, round through his hair and down over his ears, ‘cos waking up was a process that was not to be taken lightly. Then he shuffled up the bed a little, sheet moving loosely like one of the corners had pinged free, and turned to look at the barest shadowed lines that the e-reader made of Bucky’s face. 

Bucky was focused, jaw clenched, breathing light and fast and inaudible against the background drumming. His knees were hitched up to rest the book on, and his fingers were wrapped tightly to the edges of it, his eyes moving lightning fast. 

Harry Potter, Clint was pretty sure. He’d been reading Harry Potter, Order of the Phoenix, and Clint knew the Department of Mysteries when he saw it in the tension of Bucky’s lines. 

He lay back against the pillows piled behind him, staring up at the gray darting specks that took the place of the ceiling this late. This was not what he’d ever expected, when he’d thought about love, about what it might look like when applied to his life. But this was it - woken out of sleep ‘cos your partner was a geek and willing - fuckin’  _yearning_  - to do this for the rest of your life. 

And Bucky’d run a mile if that ever came out of Clint’s mouth. 

Didn’t stop him pondering, though. Half past dark and staring up at the ceiling and picking out names for their army of dogs. 

“Does it -” Bucky’s voice was hoarse in the darkness, and Clint was gonna pick out something beautiful for him next, something easy that ended in smiles, “is it gonna end okay?” 

“Shh,” Clint said, reached over so he could nudge his fingers between Bucky’s, ‘cos he wasn’t ready to hear that someday their mailbox would be painted blue, “no spoilers.” 

 

 


	133. Chapter 133

Bucky’s feet were crossed at the ankle, so it was a little uncomfortable when Clint collapsed across them. Not  _on_  them, he’d kinda curled himself so he was slumped on as much of the couch as possible while still making allowances for the other person there, but it wasn’t the best. Bucky made sure to poke him in the solar plexus with the knuckle of his big toe as he attempted to disentangle. 

“Everything sucks,” Clint said. Groaned, actually, into his inner elbow, where the skin was pale and baby-soft, not that Bucky’d noticed. 

“Yup,” he said. It wasn’t exactly news that the world had gone to shit. 

“I can’t hit anything I shoot at,” Clint continued, and Bucky rolled his eyes. 

“Lies,” he said, and turned the page. He was flipping through some catalog that’d been free inside a newspaper. It sold those chairs that helped you stand up after and baths with doors in them; no one in the pictures was a year under 75. Three of them were wearing shirts Steve had in his closet. 

“Yeah, maybe, but the world is still awful,” Clint said, sulky somehow at Bucky pointing out that yeah, he was still the world’s best marksman. (With a  _bow_.) 

“The hell crawled up your ass?” Bucky said, and Clint mumbled something into the crook of his elbow. Bucky wanted to put his face there. So he could hear it. No other reason. 

“Use your words,” Bucky said, and reached out to give him an encouraging pat on - the inner thigh. Huh. He considered withdrawing his hand swiftly, reconsidered for level of suspicion created, wound up with it resting there a little too long as he dithered, and decided to just - leave it. Casual like. 

“Doom said he preferred the purple outfit so he didn’t have to look at my face,” Clint said, and Bucky regarded his expression for a moment, kinda thrown by the fact that Clint looked genuinely a little hurt by this. 

“Why are we listening to Doom?” Bucky said. “When was that a thing we started doing?” 

Clint shrugged one shoulder, pathetic and small like he got sometimes. 

“Fuck’s sake.” Bucky heaved himself a little more upright against the arm of the couch, ‘cos things said while horizontal were often unreliable. “Okay, one,” he said, “purple is awesome and beats green six ways to Sunday.” 

Clint, sad puddle of archer that he was, still managed to raise his fist for a purple pride fistbump. Bucky indulged him. 

“Two,” he said, “you know goddamn well you’re pretty as hell, Barton,  so quit with the - what. What, why’re you looking at me like that?” 

“You think I’m pretty?” he said, and anyone else would’ve at least  _tried_  to sound teasing. Clint just sound shocked and - maybe a little hopeful, right in the back there. 

“You’re an idiot who somehow pulls off purple and, god help me, I’d suck on your tongue if you’d quit using it for whining,” Bucky said. 

Clint’s mouth did that thing, where only one half of it’d commit to the smile right away, just in case the world took away whatever he was smiling at. It was slow and lopsided and settled, warm and familiar, right in Bucky’s gut. 

“’cos I’m pretty, right?” he said. 

“’cos you’re pretty,” Bucky said, and he could feel his face flushing unattractively so he shoved himself to his feet and launched towards the gym. “Hey Steve! STEVE, IS THIS YOU?” 


	134. Chapter 134

Bucky came home to find Clint about a foot from where he’d been when he left that morning, and the apartment in almost exactly the same state, too. He took a couple deep breaths, felt his teeth grinding together, tried to keep his voice accusation-free. 

“Not what I was hoping for, I admit,” he said, and Clint’s shoulders hunched in just a little. 

“Hey,” he said, and he sounded kinda heavy. Tired. 

“Should we just - not?” Bucky asked, and he honestly didn’t mean to sound so pissed, but out of all the many and varied emotions pissed was the easiest to deal with right now. 

At least Clint’s reaction was something. His head shot up, eyes wide, and he scrambled onto his knees. Supplication, that was the word for it, right? 

“Buck, no, please, I swear I want to do this, I just -” 

“You just got attached to this place, and I’m askin’ you to make these huge changes for me, and I get that -”

“Buck.” 

“- it’s too soon, or too much of a commitment, or -”

“ _Bucky_.” 

“- maybe you’re just not that into the whole living together -”

“Buck,  _please_.” 

Clint looked - genuinely distressed. Stupidly miserable. Beaten down by it, and that was enough to deflate all the pissed that Bucky could muster. 

“Aw, fuck, it’s okay, sweetheart,” he said, and sank down to the floor next to Clint, pulled him into an awkward halfway hug. “It’s okay if you wanna wait, I don’t -” 

“I couldn’t find the lid for the fuckin’ tupperware,” Clint said, which cut Bucky off at the knees. 

“…what?” 

Clint eased back from him, sat back on his heels, rubbed his forearm across his eyes like a little kid. 

“I found the box but I couldn’t find the goddamn lid,” he said, “and it just seemed - important, like that was the thing I needed to do most, and then -” he flailed, vaguely, in the direction of the kitchen island, “and then when I was looking for that I figured we needed some kinda bubblewrap for the mugs, right? So I went to the bodega on the corner, but they didn’t have packing tape, and then I knocked over the box with the silverware and - you’d cleaned them, I didn’t wanna start out with filthy fuckin’ forks so - and then they had to dry -” 

Bucky grabbed for Clint’s hands, which were telling a distressed story all their own. 

“And then it was fuckin’ four, somehow,” Clint said, hopeless, “and I knew you were coming back and -”

“It’s okay.” 

“- and I just started thinking about - this is what you’re signing up for.  _Fuck_.” 

“Hey,” Bucky said. He reached out to cradle the back of Clint’s head, threaded his fingers through the hair there and let his thumb soothe back and forth. “Hey, baby -” 

“I’m sorry,” Clint mumbled, once Bucky had tugged him all the way in, forehead resting in the crook of Bucky’s neck where it fit just exactly right. “I’m a mess.” 

“I love you,” Bucky said, easy as breathing. “I love you, and this is nothing, and we’ll get in professional fuckin’ movers, okay? I don’t give a shit, I just wanna be with you.” 

 

 


	135. Chapter 135

“I’m not back, back,” Clint said, slamming back through the door still in as much as a temper as the first time. “I just forgot my -” 

“Kitchen counter,” Bucky said, without lifting his head. 

The rattle-clatter of keys. Squeak of old converse, almost worn-through. By the door, a pause. 

“Where’s -” 

“Simone’s got his leash. Given she’s got the dog, and all.” 

“Right. Right, I knew that. And -” 

“No later than five thirty. She’s got that yoga class with - I dunno, first floor guy -”

“Jack,” Clint said. “He’s dating Camille on fifth.” 

“Right.”

Bucky counted the arrow holes in the ceiling. Wondered why the door hadn’t slammed again. 

Clint let out a long sigh. 

The squeak of converse again. Rattle-crash of keys set down, and the squeak of that floorboard right behind where Bucky sat. 

Clint’s face appeared above him, exasperated and resigned and upside down, so when he leaned in for a kiss his stubble scraped Bucky’s nose. 

“Thought you were -” Bucky said, and gestured vaguely to symbolise, somehow, storming out. 

“Yeah, I thought I was too, but if I can’t even finish a sentence without you -”

Bucky stole the end of that one, too, stretching up to crush his lips against Clint’s, ‘cos Clint wasn’t the only half-a-person in this apartment, and Bucky wasn’t letting him go. 

 

 


	136. Chapter 136

The two Stark employees looked legitimately terrified when Bucky slammed through the door, and Clint attempted to smile at them reassuringly. Of course, to do so, he had to hook his chin back over his tac vest - pulled up as it was half over his face and uncomfortably under his arms - and it may as a result have been a little more of a grimace. Still. 

“Out,” Bucky growled, and they exchanged a look before ducking for the door. 

“You’ve got about four minutes before security is up your ass,” Clint said, “so if you’re gonna kill me you’d better make it -”

“Not gonna kill you.” Bucky let go of his vest and shoved him forward, right between the shoulder blades. Clint hit the table - although not so hard as it’d’ve been easy to make him - and rolled sideways so his back was to it, so if Bucky’d followed him he’d be caught off balance. He hadn’t, though. He was standing by the door with some kinda weird internal conflict written clear across his face. 

“Okay?” Clint relaxed a little. He could relax on a tightrope - and had - so a conference room table biting into his ass was nothing. “So why’re we -” 

“Thank you.” 

Bucky’s voice was hoarse as hell, reluctant, a little confused. Clint blinked at him. 

“I - you’re welcome?” He frowned, cocked his head a little to the side. “I mean, saved your life, I woulda preferred chocolate, maybe some beer, rather than being dragged into an empty room in fear for my life - or my virtue, maybe, if you were an entirely different -” 

The look Bucky sent him from under dark hair was a complexity of reluctant heat, and yeah, yeah that was pretty easy to mistake for murderous if you hadn’t seen murderous on his face before. 

“Huh,” he said, eloquent as ever. 

“Yeah,” Bucky said. 

“So I guess it’s not the security team you want up your ass,” Clint said, and then winced preemptively, woulda gone for the facepalm if Bucky hadn’t got in the way first. 

 

 


	137. Chapter 137

Clint sometimes wishes he were a little skinner. Or that Bucky was. It’d be kinda nice if someone commented on - or even  _noticed -_  the difference in fit, the fact that he’s been wearing his guy’s shirts pretty much every day this week. 

Like when Tasha had emerged for breakfast that time in a softly faded purple-gray shirt, sleeves folded up around her elbows, and Tony’d got that little lopsided smile. Like when Thor had wandered through the living area almost busting out of Jane’s ‘forget princess, I wanna be an astrophysicist’ sleep shirt. 

It’s like - code. ‘I’m gettin’ some’ smug paired with enough commitment to just skirt the edge of scary, and Clint’s not even sure  _Bucky’s_  noticed. Guy wears a lot of boring black. 

Fuck it. They smell good, anyway. Clint’s not gonna quit stealing them.

*

He’s a little startled a couple days later when Steve comes up to him, beams, and pulls him into a back-slapping hug. It’s not that Steve isn’t physically affectionate, it’s just that it doesn’t usually come Clint’s way which - he can now attest, from actual experience - is a freaking travesty. 

Sam - who is close behind Steve, at his right hand, same as always - arches an eyebrow and crosses his arms across his chest - white shirt, a little loose around the whole pec area,  _holy shit he’s fuckin’ Steve._

 _“_ Didn’t see that coming,” he says, which is cryptic. “Still,” he adds, “congratulations.” 

Clint looks down at his shirt, a little confused. Long-sleeved black henley, same as the last five shirts he borrowed from Bucky. Maybe it’s finally sunk in?

That’s what he figures until he gets into the kitchen, sees Bucky grumpily shovelling cinnamon grahams into his mouth, hair tied half-back and a little milk dribbled down his dumb purple shirt. 


	138. Chapter 138

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sequel to #127

Clint’s giggling helplessly against the inside of his elbow. He figures it’s some kinda adrenaline-rush comedown, some combination of brain-chemicals that has his legs too shaky to support him and his stomach all full of helium. 

Someone drops to the cracked tarmac beside him, jingle and clank, and the way they’re all armed it could be anyone but he’s got this feeling in the backs of his wobbly knees. Like a schoolyard kisses kinda feeling. Small and uncertain and spangling-bright. 

“You okay?” And yeah, that’s Bucky’s almost-growl, like he’s forgotten how to make the good sort of noises even though the good sort of emotions are making their way back. 

“You think my hair’s pretty,” Clint says, and then falls back into giggling, and his helium-stomach’s made its way up to his throat and is almost choking him, and he’s not sure why it feels like he’s on the edge of crying. “Oh Jesus. Oh man, we really lived through that, huh?” 

“Either that or all the major religions got their visions of the afterlife screwy,” Bucky says. There’s a tentative brush of fingers against the hair just over Clint’s ear, which he can definitely understand. It’s short enough there that it feels a bit like velvet, and the small movements shiver somehow through his whole damn body. 

“I could deal with this heaven, if it meant there was you. Guys,” Clint adds, belated, helium dissipating, stomach sinking. “If you guys were -” 

He falls silent when the fingers quit trailing through his hair. Slide instead around the base of his ear, just firm enough not to tickle, along his cheek and to the edge of his mouth. Clint licks his lip, involuntarily, and Bucky’s fingers follow the movement, spreading an impossible feeling right across Clint’s mouth. He pulls his arm away from over his eyes and looks up into stormy gray, into an uncertainty of emotion that’s gotta be - it’s that post-battle adrenaline crash, right?

No one’s ever gonna look like that at  _him_. 

“I think your hair’s pretty,” Bucky tells him, all serious-like, and the helium’s apparently snuck through his rib-cage, ‘cos when Bucky bends down to press his cracked lips to Clint’s, Clint’s stupid battle-drunk heart takes  _flight_. 


	139. Chapter 139

The last time Bucky was sleepy was in 1941. 

He’s been tired since, of course. Drained. Fatigued. Exhausted. 

Shattered. 

Bucky was tired when he didn’t even know what tired was, aching muscles and operational inefficiency and fractionally slowed reflexes; tired was weakness and weakness was death and death was a constant companion. 

But sleepy?

There are - connotations. 

Bucky was (deprived) drained. He was (used up) exhausted. Fatigued (weakened, by repeated variations of stress). 

(Broken, or caused to break suddenly, and violently, into pieces.)

This - warm lassitude, heavy eyelids, flannel pants, bare feet - 

Nothing he remembered had prepared him for this. Nothing, he suspected, could’ve prepared him for this. 

Clint wormed his way between Bucky’s legs so he could lean back, rest against his chest, balance a bowl of Cheetos in the crook of his arm. A heavy indulgence of warmth that sank into every last inch of him. 

“You good?” Clint asked, and Bucky hummed softly, nose brushing Clint’s temple, arm curled across his chest. 

“’m sleepy,” Bucky said, halfway (hopeful, halfway) afraid that Clint would understand what he meant. 


	140. Chapter 140

“Hey,” Clint says, dropping his keys on the floor by the door where he is most likely to painfully step on them and, therefore, not forget to pick them up. Life hack. “Hey, there’s an assassin in my living room. Again.” 

“You should maybe reconsider your life choices,” Bucky says. The last word is actually more of a grunt, ‘cos he’s wrestling with Lucky and Lucky is a heavy dog when he lands right on the solar plexus. Lucky barks triumphantly and then bounces over to nose at Clint’s hand, which, y’know, it’s nice that  _someone’s_ glad he’s home. 

“There are no choices,” Clint says, “I live a choiceless existence. Things just  _happen_.” 

“Things happen if you let them,” Bucky says. He’s pushed up onto his elbows now, legs crossed at the ankle, and he’s watching Clint with thoughtful eyes. 

“Sure,” Clint says, a little uncomfortable. “Blame the  _victim.”_ He shoves the paper bag he’s carrying onto the counter and starts unpacking, mushrooms and bell peppers and chorizo, cans of tomatoes and butter beans. He’s got a couple onions and cloves of garlic from the last time Katie cooked, he can make this work. 

“Holy shit,” Bucky says, drawling and a little amused, “Barton, are those vegetables?” 

“Yeah, yeah,” he answers, inexplicably feeling a little heat in his cheeks, “I do  _listen_  when you talk.” 

“Good  _choice_ ,” Bucky says, subtle emphasis, and Clint rolls his eyes. 

“I don’t choose things,” Clint says again, “I get shoved into things by the pushy assassins that control my life. But hey, saves having to think about what I want.” 

“And what do you want?” Bucky asks, and then takes a minute to shove himself to his feet, which gives Clint a little breathing room away from his thoughtful stare. 

“I don’t know,” Clint says. “I try not to think about it.” 

(Especially when he’s around Bucky, he tries not to think about it, and every move and expression and sound Bucky makes is a little more difficult to ignore. Makes him want to just - ) 

“You should,” Bucky says. 

Clint makes an undignified inquisitive noise. 

“Think about it,” Bucky adds. 

“I’m thinking,” Clint says, and he can’t help it that his eyes drop to Bucky’s mouth, a flicker of a stare that still catches the beginnings of an upward curl. 

“Good,” Bucky says. “Make a choice.” 


	141. Chapter 141

The aids aren’t so good at filtration, curation of noise, and each new upgrade settles into him slow. For a few days he wide-eyed listens to life creeping through his walls, rumbling low and sharp-delighted, musical-nonsensical, languid-lush. The building’s alive with it, his home a living entity in and of itself, sustained and nourished by life and laughter and the crackling speaker on old Jonah’s radio. 

Would it be weird to want this as a superpower? To be able to spread out like the waves of sound, let his soul lap at the walls. He loves this home he’s made for himself, fierce and protective and necessary, loves every tenor and tone and timbre of it. 

“Huh?” he asks, absent, and Bucky rumbles a delighted-musical-lush laugh. 

“Quit ignoring me,” he says, teasing, and Clint smiles helplessly at him. 

“Couldn’t,” he says. “I just love the way you sound.”


	142. Chapter 142

“Hey!”

Bucky startled sideways as someone leaped out of a goddamn tree at the side of the path, landing with a heavy two-footed thump and not even pausing before haring off down the path after a guy who’d brushed past Bucky a second before, loud and obnoxious on his phone. The guy took one look at the man bearing down on him and span around, tearing off into the trees.

Bucky stood there, gaping. He was too fresh back, not enough New York had penetrated the dust that still felt caked on; no one else even bothered reacting.

He did what he always did when he felt outside of himself: reached into his right-hand pocket, felt for his phone, Steve’s number the only ever most recently dialled. There was nothing, though; no frantic groping, no crosswise reaching revealed the familiar weight of it.

His fingers felt a little numb. He checked all through his pockets again, ending with the one on his stomach, fingers clenched into a tight fist and pressed against his stomach, head tipped forward so his hair would hide the stupid goddamn panic in his eyes.

Breathe, Buck, Steve said, in his head and only in his head, and it didn’t work ‘cos his head never quite got Steve’s voice right.

There were - next steps. Logical things he really oughta do, none of which he did. Edged over, instead. Edge of the path, scent of cool green where his boots crushed the grass, tree trunk to brace his back against. It felt safer, that way, and it felt like a hell of a betrayal when someone at his elbow spoke and Bucky nearly jumped out of his goddamn skin.

“Hey.” His voice was gleeful, and Bucky whirled to face the grin that carried it, set under a cheekbone that was already dark with a forming bruise. Blue eyes, too, brighter than Stevie’s and twice as pretty. “Hey,” he said, “I got your phone.”


	143. Chapter 143

Bucky scowls and tucks just the ends of his fingers into the jeans that’re riding low on his hips, hunching his shoulders and scowling off to the side, his dark hair loose and tousled, one strand caught at the corner of his mouth. It’s bright sun and red brick and stark shadow, it’s the superhero angle of his jaw, it makes him look like he’s shrugging off the weight of a world that’s inclined to settle on his shoulders. 

It’s a cover shot, no question. It’s -  _he’s_  - fuckin’  _beautiful_.

“You’re thinking about pizza, right?” Clint says, and manages to keep snapping even with the butterflies that swirl around his stomach when Bucky turns to face him, startled, lush mouth parting in surprise before it curls into a grin. 

“Do not even talk to me about pizza,” Bucky says, his voice soft but still a little scratchy - metallic threads sewn through dark velvet, something brought out for only the most special occasions. “I haven’t had Sal’s garlic crust since November.” 

“Well call me when they start letting you wear shirts,” Clint says, “I’ll take you out for mozzarella sticks and a pepperoni pie.” 

Bucky’s scowl comes back, staring straight down the lens like he wants to murder it. It really shouldn’t be as hot as it is; Clint clears his throat and focuses on framing things right. 

“Quit talkin’ about food,” Bucky says, growls rather, and Clint drops into a crouch so he can get a new angle and - and because of the convenient way his jeans bunch up, conceal things, maybe a little. 

“Be good for five more minutes and I’ll buy you an ice-cream,” Clint tells him, and Bucky pulls one foot up to rest against the wall behind him. He tilts his head back, looks at Clint through half-lidded eyes, brings one hand up to rest against his collarbone. 

“I’ll be good for you,” he says, husky and low, and he’s - Clint understands that he’s playing, that he’s trying to get Clint back, that it doesn’t mean - but that doesn’t stop Clint blushing all the way up to his ears. 


	144. Chapter 144

James Barnes, aka Bucky, aka The Asset, aka The Winter Soldier, aka who the hell knows what else, wakes.

Ain’t exactly a simple process. There’re a lot of fragments to reassemble, after dreaming. Feels like casting out a line into deep, dark waters, and hoping like hell you’ve used the right bait.

(When the hell has he ever fished? Which the hell of him did it?)

It’s made a little easier these days. Waking up to cold sheets had narrowed it down a little; waking up to sunlight-stripes and the snuffle-clatter of a dog who’s excited to hear your barest movement could only be him, could only be here.

Clint’s all spread out next to him, drooling into his pillow, freckled shoulders against purple sheets. Maybe he ain’t exactly a work of art - unless he’s one of those rescued from flooding, bruised and battered and a little washed-out - but he’s evocative. He evokes.

Everything good.

He curls himself on his side and traces the lines of Clint’s face with his eyes. Finds himself smiling without even having to make a conscious effort as Clint breathes in a little heavier, snorts, stirs.

“Y'gonna do this every morning?” Clint says, sleep-stale and barely-awake.

“Yes,” he decides.


	145. Chapter 145

“Quit staring.” 

Bucky snaps his head around, glares at Sam and way he can’t hide how he’s grinning into his coffee. 

“I’m not  _staring_ ,” Bucky says, and Sam lets out a snort that’s neither subtle nor unjustified. “I’m tryin’ to work out -” 

“Cup size?” 

“Fuck you.” 

Tasha looks up at that, from her position on the  _other side of the freakin’ store_ , and Bucky and Sam send her angelic grins in return. No boss, they’d never violate Corporate’s ruling on inappropriate workplace banter, not a chance, ma’am. 

“I’m  _trying,”_ Bucky continues, after she’s finally looked away, “to work out what the hell  _sport_  he plays.” 

 _He_  has been in a couple times a week for a while now. He tends to browse, to banter a little with Tasha, to hold up anything lurid and spandex against himself and make considering faces in the mirror. So far all he’s bought has been a pair of purple shoe laces that’d clashed with the faint flush of pink he’d been sporting. 

Every time since Bucky’s tried to summon him closer with the power of his mind, tried to prompt another of those sideways little smiles that’d beamed microwaves directly into his chest and melted something there. He’s been unsuccessful, but the amount of - yeah, okay Sam -  _staring_  has suggested a whole slew of sports-specific injuries, no week the same. 

So far he’s had grass-stains and skinned knees, which’d suggested soccer to Bucky. The next week, street-hockey elbow road-rash. After that it’d been a bloody nose and a blooming shiner, which could be anything from boxing to a misplaced baseball. This week he’s sporting a long narrow bruise, and it’s not like it’s consistent with the rest of the injuries but at least this one’s  _obvious_. Nothing else Bucky could imagine it’d be. 

He moves silent - he’s good at it. He kinda got in with a bad crowd for a while there. He’s not expecting the sheer level of defensive when he speaks up, the way the guy practically shoots up into the air and comes down ready to swing for him. 

“Hey,” he says, palms out, surrender. “Hey, I didn’t mean to -”

“Sorry.” The guy rubs the back of his neck, awkward, pink bleeding into his cheeks and washing out the freckles there. “I - too much caffeine, I guess?”

“You’re gonna hurt someone,” Bucky says, “which I guess’d make a change from -” he gestures, indicating the whole of the guy. 

“Yeah, yeah,” he says, and scuffs at the carpet tiles with a battered purple sneaker. “I’ve already got Nat on my case about -” 

“Oh.” 

It’s stupid, the disappointment there. Bucky’s a little ashamed that he’s got so caught up in nothing more than the way shy looks against his skin. He shoves what he’s carrying at the guy, mumbles something about using Tasha’s staff discount, saunters back over to the checkout and ignores Sam’s sympathetic smile. He lets his hair fall forward over his face, takes payment for some hideous neon sneakers, counts down the minutes until the end of his shift. 

“Um?” 

Bucky reluctantly makes eye contact, stupid heartbreak shade of blue. 

“I - er.” 

The guy’s fiddling with the bracer Bucky’d shoved at him. 

“How’d you guess archery?” he asks. 

“I noticed the bruises,” Bucky says, and then winces at how smooth that was not. He’s always prided himself on his ability to charm, but it’s stumbled somehow over blond bedhead and a self-deprecating grin. 

“Yeah,” the guy says, “Tasha’s always yelling at me about them.” Bucky looks away, so he doesn’t see the facial expression as the guy awkwardly adds, “’cos she’s like my sister, and all.” 

Huh. 

“You could take a little better care of yourself,” Bucky says, tucking his hair behind his ear and trying out a little smile. 

“I’m kind of a mess.” The guy’s grinning, too. 

“A  _hot_  mess,” Bucky says, and somewhere Sam’s groaning and doesn’t know why.


	146. Chapter 146

The past that Clint’s had, his relationship with sleep is complex and varied. He tends to sleep aids-in, had Tony rig up an overnight program for them, takes them out for breakfast instead, and briefings. 

Speech muffled through caravan walls, thick canvas, panes of glass, that reminder that the world is ticking on around Clint and that he’s not needed, it’s one of the best sleep aids there is. Speech in the room, though -

Clint wakes up, stays complete still, and the relief of the reality of  _horizontal_  and  _couch_  washes through him for a second before he unclenches his fists. 

“ -  _Clint?”_

He almost responds, automatic, His Captain’s Voice, but he’s still lagging ‘cos he was dreaming about zacusa and telmea and nobody wants to wake up from that. 

“Fuck you.” 

Ah. Bucky time. It’s just as well then, not to have interrupted, ‘cos their interactions are kinda precarious at best and Captain Steve’s got a pout to beat the band.  _Clint_  has the advantage of a lack of  _history_ , and where Tasha and Steve see someone who’s Not Quite Right, Clint sees someone who’s quietly hilarious and piss-poor at losing, tall dark and painfully handsome, a little needy in a way that tugs at Clint’s insides. 

He’s trying not to think too hard about it. 

“I mean, he’s - he’s great? He’s -”

(Clint feels the pauses like splinters under his skin.)

“Yeah, alright, don’t hurt yourself.” Bucky’s voice is low and a little angry. Not soldier angry, though, nothing Tasha would tense for - more a little defensive but comfortable with it. Old argument, old friend. “You don’t have to get it, you just have to help me.” 

“You’re kidding me, right?” This moment right here is the greatest temptation to sit up. Steve is somehow hilarious when sarcastic, when snippy, when pissed. “You know how slick I was not when -” 

Their silences, they’re always kinda fraught. Steve stumbles over something old and half-buried, like the stomach-churning reality of a forgotten last step, and weirdly it’s  _Bucky’s_  face Clint has a hard time looking at. He looks up at the ceiling and tries not to picture the guy’s hollowed-out expression, tries not to vault over the couch back and go get punched trying to hold his hand. 

He does snort though, smack his lips, make an audible show of waking up. 

“I’ll - think about it,” from Steve, and one set of retreating feet. A pause. 

“So you heard that,” Bucky says, and he’s right behind the couch now, ‘cos he moves on cat feet. Clint looks up at him, at the threadbare gray shirt that’s clinging lovingly, at the sweet mess of his bedtime hair. 

“I -” heard, maybe, but didn’t understand. He can’t be parsing this right, there’s no way that - “not  _me_ , though?” 

Bucky rounds the couch, and Clint scoots his knees up just in time for his feet not to get crushed by the guy’s full weight. Once he’s settled, he looks over, gives Clint a quick up-and-down look and shrugs one shoulder. 

“Kinda wanna kiss your face.” 

“I mean - sure,” Clint says, scooting further, his heels scrabbling at the couch cushions, his stomach doing an entire acrobatic routine. “You could do that.” 

Turns out Bucky’s mouth remembers everything his brain’s let go, if the way he kisses is any indication. He eases Clint’s mouth open, takes possession, makes a home for himself there. 

Clint’s okay with that. 


	147. Chapter 147

“Okay, where the fuck did that clown come from?” 

Clint looked over at Tony, who was backing away with his palms raised. Most people, that meant surrender; Tony just wanted to shoot it. 

“Yeah,” he said, “sorry about him. He just kinda - shows up, sometimes.” Clint rubbed a hand across his chin, scratched at the reassuring stubble that grew there, ‘cos he was an adult now, and clowns were  _not_  scary, not any more. 

“Apparently science says you don’t make up the people in your dreams,” Sam said, thoughtful. “Someone seriously thought that makeup was a good idea?” 

“I never got clowns,” Clint said. “I don’t -  _Tony.”_ Tony obeyed the warning in his voice, even if Clint couldn’t quite articulate  _why_  he didn’t want him getting too close. The clown just used to - watch him, back in the circus. It was nothing, it shoulda been nothing, but it still somehow showed up in his dreams. 

“Okay you said blue things,” Tony grumbled, “I was supposed to avoid blue. No one said anything about murderous clowns.” 

“I don’t know that he’s murderous,” Clint said. “He just -” he didn’t want to finish. ‘Scares me’ took a level of trust that he wasn’t quite at. 

“So we add it to the list,” Bucky said. He’d quit trying to break into the caravans - every door he opened he just popped out somewhere else. “Blue things, clowns and -”

“My dad,” Clint said. “Mostly my dad.” 

“That’s why we chose you, cupcake,” Tony said, blithely. “Imagine the horrorscape if we’d plugged Terminator here into the machine. Your nightmares are easily handled. Small scale.” 

“Sure,” Clint said, feeling about a thousand different levels of tired. He’d’ve thought Tony’d know better than anyone, how to a kid their dad could be the size of the whole freakin’ world. 

“Hey,” Bucky said, quiet behind him, and cool fingers rested briefly against the back of his neck. “I got your back.” 

Clint tried not to think too hard, about  _anything_ , ‘cos that was a whole other set of dreams he’d rather they didn’t see…


	148. Chapter 148

Clint and Bucky fighting is nothing much new, snapping insults back and forth over comms and across couches and between rooms. There’s some kinda electric friction there, has been since the first time they met, and letting it out through bickering is less of a risk than any other way Bucky might prefer.

“Get your ass outta my face, bro,” Clint says, slapping at the side of his thigh in a useless attempt to move him out of the way of the TV.

“People don’t usually get that fresh with me before we’ve gone dancing, doll,” Bucky says, dry and amused, and watches with a certain amount of fascination as Clint flushes tomato red, gapes soundlessly, and stares fixedly at the couch.

Obviously after that it has to become a Thing. Bucky likes to win.

“Hey, darlin’” Bucky murmurs, just behind Clint’s ear. Clint drops the last package of chocolate pop tarts and trips over his own feet.

“Anyone sitting here, sugar?” He asks when there’s a movie showing, and uses Clint’s distraction to shuffle in all close.

“Pass the salt, gorgeous,” one morning, and it’s worth Tony’s sputtering to see the smile that Clint can’t quite bite down.

“Look, honey,” he says, mid-argument one time, and Clint’s expression darkens, furious and tight.

“Don’t do that,” he snaps back, “you don’t get to use that to win.”

“Use what, exactly?” Bucky asks him, ‘cos they’ve done well so far in not naming it, and Clint’s the kind of guy that puts his heart on the line without thinking, Bucky’s always kinda envied that about him.

“The way I can’t think right when you call me sweetheart,” Clint says. “It’s not fair.”

“Don’t think I’ve ever called you sweetheart, sweetheart,” Bucky says, and he can’t, couldn’t possibly, wouldn’t ever resist leaning in to brush a kiss on the curve of Clint’s cheekbone, right where it’s at its brightest pink.


	149. Chapter 149

“- you freaking kidding me that was the coolest thing I’ve ever - heeeeeeey, Captain.”

Raymond had, of course, been confident that Peralta would make it through this - he was an excellent detective, and the gods loved a fool. It was still a relief to see him limping out of the rubble, one leg of his pants still smouldering and a purple strip of cloth tied jauntily around his forehead.

“Peralta,” Raymond said, wincing at the slight modulation of his tone - he hated to show so much emotion in front of his coworkers.

“You see,” Peralta said out of the side of his mouth, “like a rock.”

“And who is this?” Raymond asked. It seemed rather pressing. The man’s sleeveless state suggested where Peralta’s impromptu bandage might have come from; he appeared to be bleeding from several minor wounds himself. More worryingly, the blond man had a bow in one hand and a quiver of arrows strapped to his back. Raymond unsnapped his holster, just in case.

“So captain,” Jake began, the rising intonation revealing his uncertainty and annoying his captain both, “this is Clint Barton, I found him in a dumpster, he’s an incredible shot, can we keep him?”

“We can’t keep him,” Raymond said, precisely as the other man expressed exactly the same sentiment.

“Aaw,” Peralta complained, “but I’ve been so good this year!”

“Then perhaps Sergeant Jeffords will bring you a pony,” Raymond told him, and Peralta’s mouth dropped into one of those aggravatingly charming beaming grins.

“Really?” He said. “No, you’re joking, they’d never let me have a pony, where would it live?” Then his eyes lit with the demonic fire of bad ideas and idiot optimism. “The roof,” he breathed, and Clint snorted out a laugh. He had one of those lived in faces that made an age almost impossible to guess; whatever his age, he was made to smile.

“Look, this’s been great,” he said, hitching his quiver more securely onto his shoulder, “and you should look me up if you ever do that mac’n’cheese pizza roll idea, but I gotta go save the city, probably.”

Raymond eased his gun out of his holster and adjusted his stance. “I’m afraid I can’t just have you wandering around with a deadly weapon, son,” he said.

“Aaw, he called you son!” Peralta said. “Are you excited? I’m excited.” He gasped. “That makes us *brothers*.”

Clint, at least, recognised the gravity of the situation. He’d slung his bow over his other shoulder and laced his hands on top of his head.

“Look,” he said, “I know I don’t exactly look it but I am an Avenger, and -“

“Shoulda gone with the X-Men,” Jake put in helpfully. “There’s so many of them no one knows all their faces, fake a power and drink for free!” He grinned at them both but his smile disappeared when he caught Raymond’s eye. “Not that I would do that, he said, voice fading into a mumble, “I’d never do that, that’s a terrible idea…”

“Can we just - can you trust me on this?” Clint asked, not sounding as though he was holding out much hope. “It’s always so embarrassing when I have to get Captain America involved.”

“Hey, is it true he’s like 100 years old?” Jake asked, and at Clint’s nod, “and does his - y’know - his Stars and Stripes, does it all still -?”

“Peralta!” Raymond snapped.

“Well I can’t speak for Cap,” Clint mused, “but his best buddy from the war is my boyfriend, and super soldiers are a goddamn revelation, I swear.”

“Noice,” Jake said, and Clint brought one of his hands down long enough for a fist bump.

 

 


	150. Chapter 150

“- crush your testicles in the fax machine.” 

“What the hell is a fax machine?” 

He was tall, glowering, leather-clad, and his hair looked like he’d just yanked it back with one hand and cut it with a k-bar using the other. Which was - oh, look at that, made of  _metal_. Amy grabbed Rosa by the arm and pulled her backwards, and it was  _really_  not a good sign that she just bared her teeth at the man rather than doing violence to Amy’s person. 

“Rosa,” she hissed, keeping one eye on the… victim? Possibly? He kind of looked like an assassin. “Is this another Pimento situation?” 

“I dunno,” Rosa said. “Maybe.” She raised her voice a little. “Hey, Terminator, wanna bone?” 

“Sorry, officer,” tall, dark and terrifying said. “I’m spoken for.” And he gestured to the other side of the bullpen, at Jake’s new best friend. He was wearing a shirt, possibly Boyle’s, that was clinging to every ab that had ever existed and had a sizeable coffee stain on the front. Clint grinned back at them and waved a hand that had two fingers taped together; Jake was occupied taping another band-aid to his cheek. 

“Tight,” Rosa said. 


End file.
